Brew day tomorrow - quick question

My first brew day is tomorrow. I got the Stormcastle Ale extract kit from AHB. I'm trying to use brew target to figure out what I should change for my hops bill for a full boil, but am having some issues. I only have the hops that came with the kit(which calls for a 2.5 gallon boil).

THe kit calls for

steeping
.5 lbs chocolate malt
.5 lbs brown malt
.5 lbs cara Munich malt
.5 lbs maris otter malt

Boil
7lb amber extract

Bittering hops
1 oz yakima
.5 oz willamette

flavor hops
.75 oz willamette

aroma
.75 oz willamette

Alphas are 4.5% in each


Can I do a full boil with the hops provided? Am I better off sticking with a 2.5 gallon boil then adding the 2.75 of cool water afterward?
Any help?

If brew target is right, I will be using less hops than what is called for for the partial boil?

ChrisMichels said:

If brew target is right, I will be using less hops than what is called for for the partial boil?

Click to expand...

Yes. and No.

There's a ton of discussion going on right now about what really causes hops utilization to change, and some disagreement on it. There are new studies coming out showing that it's NOT the case that a full boil increases hops utlization.

In my experience, beers will have a slight difference. In one case I did the same beer with a partial boil, and then later with a full boil. The second beer was much more bitter initially, and when I later ran it through some brewing software, it showed the IBUs jumped from about 15-27 IBUs. That's in software, not in an actual test. Hoever, the beer did taste more bitter than the first one. In a "lighter" beer, that was very noticeable. It did fade with a bit of aging. However, in a higher IBU beer my opinion is that it really doesn't matter nearly as much or maybe not even at all.

In a beer with a relatively low IBU, I think you'd be safe to decrease the bittering hops slightly. On the other hand, I think you'd be safe to NOT decrease them, too. I am really beginning to think it doesn't matter.

Thanks for the response.

So with this brown ale, I might as well just go for it and leave the hop bill the same? I'm too inexperienced to know what a high IBU beer is vs a low IBU beer.

With my software, I'm getting a total IBU of 46.9

I'll jump in here, I used to do partial boils when I first started. I used kits for the first 2 or 3 batches, and then found a LHBS. It's much cheaper to just use the recipe and buy what's listed. When I did my first full boil, I followed the recipe as I did with the kits. I didn't have any of the partial boiled bottles left, so I was going on memory of how it tasted, but I thought it was the same. If it was a higher IBU, I didn't notice.

Go for it. The best part about this hobby is that you don't have to be exact to make a great tasting beer.