Water Amount

During my boil I have to use a relatively small pot for a 2.5 gallon batch. It ends up being probably 1.4-1.5 gallons. That being said, how important is it to have a total water amount closer to the total water amount of the batch? Or would it be better for me to be using say 1 gallon instead of what I have? Trying to understand the amount of water used in the boil vs. the end product...

*Edit: Up till now I have only done extract brews...

When making extract brews, you want to boil as much volume as you can, up to boiling the full wort. (In other words, starting with a pre-boil volume larger than your batch size and boiling the wort down to your batch size.)
If you have a small brewpot, one thing you can do is keep a second pot of water boiling as your wort boils and use water from it to keep your brewpot volume roughly constant.
If you look around, you can find 5–7 gallon stainless steel pots fairly cheap.


Chris Colby
Editor
beerandwinejournal.com

Thanks, I may have to, I am wanting to do my next batch with steeping, and I am assuming you want to keep the same rules as Extract.

I found a 16qt at Wally for $12, not the best by far, but it's a start

Anything over 20 quart pot on a stove top can make it difficult (if not impossible) to boil, and hold the boil.

Boiling about half the volume is a reasonable amount. Obviously a gull boil is better, but half is pretty good. Add half the extract at flame out and the gravity of the boil should be reasonable.

All the recipes I have been using are all extract in after water comes to a boil. I know this darkens the beer a bit, but it's got a good color to it. I'm trying to think of how adding it later in the game would affect the gravity? Isn't the gravity affected by the sugars?

skitter said:

All the recipes I have been using are all extract in after water comes to a boil. I know this darkens the beer a bit, but it's got a good color to it. I'm trying to think of how adding it later in the game would affect the gravity? Isn't the gravity affected by the sugars?

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Adding some of the extract near the end of the boil has two main purposes:

1) one issue with extracts is that they can caramelize in the boil and create more unfermentable sugar compounds. This is more likely to happen with an extract-based wort and more likely to happen with a partial-volume boil. This caramelization also adds to the darker color of extract batches, so adding some later on can help with that, too.

2) hop utilization. The bitterness extracted from hops goes down as the gravity of the boil wort goes up. Saving some of the extract until the end means the wort you're boiling in is lower gravity, and you can have higher hop utilization. Many extract recipes assume you are doing a partial-volume boil (and therefore will have a higher-than-normal boil gravity) and are somewhat calibrated to account for the lower utilization but saving some extract until the end can increase the hop utilization.

Either way the OG should be the same, but the final product can be greatly manipulated with your boil methods.

Ahh, may have to fiddle with it once I start back with my recipe. I use 3lb Light and 1lb amber for my 2.5g batch. I might start doing half the light during the boil and add the rest at the end to see what I get.

I believe the general rule of thumb if 1/3rd extract at beginning and the other 2/3rd as late addition/flameout.

Trox said:

I believe the general rule of thumb if 1/3rd extract at beginning and the other 2/3rd as late addition/flameout.

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Good to Know Thanks!