another qeustion about kits...

First off, thanks to everybody who answers any questions. This is one of the friendliest more helpful forums ive been apart of!!

Now, im getting ready to use my Brewers Best Imperial Blonde Ale kit this weekend. It says to use a partial boil. I have a 35 quart pot. Can/should i do a full boil? What will i have to change in the instructions if i do use a full boil?

Consider it paying it forward. You'll do the same one day I'm sure.

I think it always behooves one to do a full boil. In this case, your primary concern will be hops utilization. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, bc I could be flip-flopping it, but I believe you'll get more hops utilization by boiling the full volume. Thus, to get the intended IBUs, you'll need to reduce the amount of hops you use somewhat. Someone's got to have a link to a calculator that will help adjust this.

I would do the full boil if your stove can handle it or if you have a gas burner. Be careful though, even in a 35 quart pot you can get a boilover with 6 gallons. You will want to decrease the hops a little due to better utilization in the larger boil but I don't know if you would notice the added bitterness in an Imperial Blonde.

So I change how long a steep then boil? Do I change when I add each hops?

no, i wouldnt worry about the steeping at all and if you were going to do a full 60 min boil, stick with that. the only thing that will change is your hops and the utilization of the AAUs. There are calculators to help figure that out or im sure if you post your recipe, someone can beersmith it for you

pwndabear said:

no, i wouldnt worry about the steeping at all and if you were going to do a full 60 min boil, stick with that. the only thing that will change is your hops and the utilization of the AAUs. There are calculators to help figure that out or im sure if you post your recipe, someone can beersmith it for you

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+1 Excatly.

I'm on my phone right now, but if u go to brewers best website, they have the recipe for imperial blonde.. so the grain bag would stay in for the whole 60 min boil?

All the bb kits i have done i did the partial boil. The directions say do this because the recipe was designed to work this way. So they claim the hops might not be right if you do a full boil.

smithnick0 said:

I'm on my phone right now, but if u go to brewers best website, they have the recipe for imperial blonde.. so the grain bag would stay in for the whole 60 min boil?

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I think what they were trying to say before was don't worry about changing the steeping from what's in the directions. I would steep as they say to, and then start the full boil. You don't want to boil it with the grains in there. I can't think of anything beneficial coming from that. There are potential (debatable) downfalls of boiling the grain.

pwndabear said:

no, i wouldnt worry about the steeping at all and if you were going to do a full 60 min boil, stick with that. the only thing that will change is your hops and the utilization of the AAUs. There are calculators to help figure that out or im sure if you post your recipe, someone can beersmith it for you

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It this an extract kit? If so, I would think that he would still want to steep the specialty grains in 2-1/2 gallons of water, then add enough water to bring the volume up to 5-1/2 to 6 gallons and proceed from there.

Also, do you have a gas burner? If not, trying to bring 5-1/2 to 6 gallons to a boil on a stove is almost impossible. What about a wort chiller? It takes a looooong time to cool 5 gallons without one.

Yes its a kit. Yes I have a gas burner, but my wort chiller is not here yet...

Yeah...it would be wise to wait for the wort chiller. It will take a ridiculously long time to cool that in an ice bath.

it would take quite awhile to bring it down to temp with out a chiller while doign a fullboil.

as for steeping, what does it matter if he steeps in 2.5 gallons as opposed to 5? imo, it doesnt matter

pwndabear said:

it would take quite awhile to bring it down to temp with out a chiller while doign a fullboil.

as for steeping, what does it matter if he steeps in 2.5 gallons as opposed to 5? imo, it doesnt matter

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My response wasn't so much about how much water when he steeps, but more about this statement:

"no, i wouldnt worry about the steeping at all"

I may have misunderstood, but it sounded like you were saying that he shouldn't steep the grains at all. My point was that he should still steep the grains, but again maybe I misunderstood your point.

well, they are steeping grains, arent they?

what i meant to say was he should go ahead and do eveything as normal and only compensate for hops.