Full Boil Question - Pot Size

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S2005

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So, I adopted a pot from a relative, that looks to be about 3 gallons. I'll measure it in a bit, and update this post.

I have read on many different directions (including the one that came with my extract brewing kit). They say you can use a 3 gallon, 5 gallon, and even a 7.5 gallon brew pot.

I don't have the extra money right now to buy a bigger pot, SWMBO would be VERY upset if I spend more money, and have no beers to show for it yet.

If I use this 3 gallon pot, how should I go about this? Do half, cool, pour into carboy, do the other half, cool, pour on top of whats in the carboy?

It's a 5 gallon batch I purchased from MoreBeer (American Wheat).
 
3 gallons likely won't be able to do a 2½ gallon boil. you need to account for what you will boil off and the probability of a boil over.

do 1/2 cool pour x2 not a good idea. you would have to do ⅓ ⅓ ⅓ and that sounds like a worse idea. from what i remember reading, you would only do the final batch with the hops and, if you're doing extract, that would mean boiling only water, just to cool it down? you might as well just do ⅓ boil and top off to 5 gallons

I got a cheap stainless 20 quart at Wally World for $16. did 3¼ gallon boils down to 2½ and top off to 5

that is, until I got the 30 quart with the propane burner. full boils!
 
Just measured it out, it will hold 4 gallons 48 oz (ish) when filled to the rim.

(So that makes mine just a tad bit over 20qts if I remember my math)
 
On a similar note: would there be a difference between doing a boil with a lid on the pot (less water evaporating off) and adding no/less top off water vs. boiling without a lid and adding more top off water?
 
For extract batches, many of them are designed to be used with smaller stove-top pots, and do not require a full boil. In many cases you only need to have about 2.5 gallons of water when you are boiling the extract and adding hops. After the batch is complete, you would then pour 2.5 gallons of water into your fermenter, add what you have boiled in your pot, then top off with however much more water you need to bring it to 5 gallons.

As always, you should check your recipe for specifics because the numbers will vary. Looking at the recipe you gave, it looks like these are your instructions. It mentions you can use 2-3 gallons. Based on what you said about your pot, I would shoot for the middle...2.5 gallons and follow the instructions on doing a partial-boil.
 
20 qts is what I had and worked for me. my pre-boil was 3¼ gallons and boil-off rate was about 3 quarts per hour

part of the reason for the boil is for hop alpha acid release, but another part is to get rid of DMS – Dimethyl Sulfide
 
zmanzorro said:
On a similar note: would there be a difference between doing a boil with a lid on the pot (less water evaporating off) and adding no/less top off water vs. boiling without a lid and adding more top off water?
Click to expand...

When he says do not boil with the lid on, he's talking about the full wort boiling. If you need to heat waterfor grain steeping or all-grain batches or just boil water to top off your wort, that's fine; in those cases, you'll want the lid on to speed up the boiling process and retain heat. But in wort boiling, you actually want water to boil off. along with that water, you're getting rid of other small organic molecules that you ideally want to be rid of. It's not as big of a deal with extract brewing, but if you ever use grains, boil that wort!

As far as how to go about your brew, I think you had the right idea in a sense; use half the water for the extract, but all of the ingredients. Top up to the 5 gallons with boiled/cooled water and pitch your yeast. Be sure to not boil too hard, however; your wort will be far more viscous, and with twice the concentration of sugars, you'll get a bit more carmelization in the boil.
 
DonLiguori said:
When he says do not boil with the lid on, he's talking about the full wort boiling. If you need to heat waterfor grain steeping or all-grain batches or just boil water to top off your wort, that's fine; in those cases, you'll want the lid on to speed up the boiling process and retain heat. But in wort boiling, you actually want water to boil off. along with that water, you're getting rid of other small organic molecules that you ideally want to be rid of. It's not as big of a deal with extract brewing, but if you ever use grains, boil that wort!

As far as how to go about your brew, I think you had the right idea in a sense; use half the water for the extract, but all of the ingredients. Top up to the 5 gallons with boiled/cooled water and pitch your yeast. Be sure to not boil too hard, however; your wort will be far more viscous, and with twice the concentration of sugars, you'll get a bit more carmelization in the boil.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I did my specialty grains with no lid, but my full boil with mostly extract with a lid. Sounds like I should be fine, but I'll remove the lid for future brews.
 
Thanks guys for all the input!!! I really appreciate it.

I think this 20qt will work fine for this extract batch.

I do have a 5gal extract kit for rogue i2pa that has a lot more components.
 
S2005 said:
Just measured it out, it will hold 4 gallons 48 oz (ish) when filled to the rim.

(So that makes mine just a tad bit over 20qts if I remember my math)
Click to expand...

20qts is 5 gallons (4qts in a gallon). You have a 17qt pot (plus 16oz). Like others said, do a partial boil and top off in the fermenter. Be careful, when you hit the boiling point it will boil over FAST. If you don't have a lot of headroom in the pot be ready to turn the fire down as soon as the hot break comes.
 
I recently moved to a 10.5 gallon pot, but before that I did my full boils in 2 smaller pots. Helped my stove too since I could get an extra burner involved. After good boil I'd then combine the worts into one pot for chilling.
 
Have you noticed any subtle variations in flavor profiles of the beer since you've moved to a larger pot for one full boil? I've always been curious about the increased carmelization that can occur from increased burner surface area. It's probably an easy way to give a nice boost to some simpler ales.
 
DonLiguori said:
Have you noticed any subtle variations in flavor profiles of the beer since you've moved to a larger pot for one full boil? I've always been curious about the increased carmelization that can occur from increased burner surface area. It's probably an easy way to give a nice boost to some simpler ales.
Click to expand...

Not yet. First batch is only one I'm drinking so far. Was supposed to be a very pale ale...partial mash. Scorched the LME in a patch about as big as a dollar bill and got something a bit darker than I'd intended....since all of my pre 10 gal pot batches were partial mash/extract + steeped grain batches, and most of my post switch will be all grain (soon as I finish that 33 lb LME purchase) not sure I'll really ever be able to answer.

Will say that until I get a proper burner I am inclined to "get to the boil" splitting my batch between two kettles, then combine the contents at some point after hot break. Last batch I started with 4.5 gal in my 10 gal bk, and 3.5 in my 5 gal pot. Combined after hot break no problem.
 
eric19312 said:
...not sure I'll really ever be able to answer.

Will say that until I get a proper burner I am inclined to "get to the boil" splitting my batch between two kettles, then combine the contents at some point after hot break. Last batch I started with 4.5 gal in my 10 gal bk, and 3.5 in my 5 gal pot. Combined after hot break no problem.
Click to expand...

You might be able to answer that question after all! Since you've got pots and burners big enough to handle a split-boil, you could try doing just that all the way through and compare it to a post-hot-break combo boil. Just an idea.

Either way, innovative way to get to boil temps. I like it.
 
DonLiguori said:
You might be able to answer that question after all! Since you've got pots and burners big enough to handle a split-boil, you could try doing just that all the way through and compare it to a post-hot-break combo boil. Just an idea.

Either way, innovative way to get to boil temps. I like it.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good experiment. I think I'm up for it in about 2 or 3 weeks as I just started 2 batches on Sunday. I actually did the double kettle all the way through on the second batch as it was a big beer, collected 8 gallons and wanted to make sure I got to 6.5 in a 90 min boil. Actually got to 6.25 and nailed my OG even though my mash efficiency was slightly lower than planned.

I'll post the experiment plan in a few days. Think it will be a simple light colored ale all grain recipe. Balanced malt and hops and clean yeast so can think about how the boil technique impacts appearance and flavor from both the malt and hops.
 
Excellent plan. You should post your recipe and any brew notes (temps, times, etc) for the whole process so we can observe the outcome.
 
Experimental Plan

Recipe (for 10 gallons)
Marris Otter 26#
Rye malt 1#
US caramel 40L 8oz
German Melanoidin 8 oz
Hops warrior/cascade/citra 60/20/0/DH for total of 60 IBU
Target OG 1.063 SRM 5.7
Yeast is US-05 harvested from prior batch' built starter day before

Mash for 10 gallon batch
90 min mash at 152 with 15 min mash out
Collect 15 gallons runnings
Clean mash cooler and use cooler to combine/mix runnings.

Boil 1: 60 min boil in 3 kettles, 2.5 gal in each pot
Combine at end, measure volume, chill and transfer to fermentor

Boil 2: est 90 min boil in one kettle
Add bittering hops with est 60 min to go
Watch volume and add flavor / aroma hops as volume approaching final volume from boil 1
Measure volume, chill and transfer to fermentor

Data to collect
Boil times
Volumes: pre and post boil, transfer and final packaged beer
Gravity pre,post boil, OG, FG
Photos pre boil, at pitching ( side by side), final product ( side by side)
Taste photo samples and get notes
 
Update:

Three pots coming to a boil...15k x 3 = 45,000 BTUs...

image-79867192.jpg
 
Results - at pitching

Batch 1 - split boil into 3 kettles
3 burners was more firepower than expected. Started boil with 7.75 gal, 60 min later was 5.3 gal. Got just about exactly 5 gal into fermentor.
PG 1.055
OG 1.076
Made mistake and did 20 min hop at 30 min so repeated mistake on second batch.
75 IBU calculated
5.7 SRM per BEer Alchemy


Batch 2 - used 3 kettles to get to boil then combined into single kettle for duration of boil
Wow this was slow
Boiled 140 min
Started boil with 7.75 gal. Ended with 5.5 gal, transferred 5.3 gal.
PG 1.055
OG 1.073
70 IBU calculated
5.5 SRM per beer alchemy

Taste - pretty similar at this point.
Photo - ditto, see below

image-3227005054.jpg
 
Looks like this experiment is going to show no sig difference between going with a short boil on 3 15k burners vs a long boil on 1 15k burner. Possibly be worth seeing if I'd get the same result comparing a 50k+range burner to my 3 pots on the stove since that could probably hit similar boil times.

Anyway will follow through to conclusion and post final results in a few weeks.
 
Looking good so far! I'm digging the experiment. Be sure to keep us updated on how the flavors develop, too. One question tho: given that it was a 140 min boil, did you know it would take that long? Were you able to modify hop addition times appropriately?

From the photo, the second batch looks slightly deeper in color, but this might just be lighting or filling of glasses, etc. But do keep us updated!
 
DonLiguori said:
Looking good so far! I'm digging the experiment. Be sure to keep us updated on how the flavors develop, too. One question tho: given that it was a 140 min boil, did you know it would take that long? Were you able to modify hop addition times appropriately?/QUOTE]


Thanks! Experiment is fun but more work than I expected. Anyway what I did was watched the site glass and guessed wheat I has about 1 hour to go, then started my hop additions. It was getting late and had been a long day so I guessed on the optimistic side which is why I ended up not boiling it down as far as I should have. Probably needed another 20 min but that would have messed up the hop additions.
Click to expand...
 
So 22 days after bottling I opened a couple of the beers and did a side by side taste test. Here are my tasting notes. Batch 16 is the 3-kettle for 1 hour, batch 17 is 1 kettle for 140 minutes, with similar evaporation rate. Overall I can say similar beers and tasting side by side difficult to tell them apart. Perhaps because it was the first beer tasted

#16 (3 kettles)
A: see photos, darker than predicted, clear enough to read through but not crystal clear, minimal head
A: fruit, sour orange - not grapefruit or apricot, maybe pineapple undertone, slightly piney
T: malt at beginning, sweet, followed by assertive bitterness as hops take over
M: lots of body, spicy carb bite on tip of tongue
F: lingering bitterness that evolves over time

#17 (1 kettle)
A: darker than expected, see photos, clear enough to read through but some lingering haze, minimal but lasting head
A: light aroma, very smooth, velvet, lemon and orange
T: malty flavor dominates up front, lingers for 15 seconds, fades and hop bitterness asserts, toast with orange marmalade
M: plenty of carb bite, body, chewy
F: clean bitter finish

Perhaps the 16 was somewhat brighter in flavor than the 17 but I tasted it first and didn't do anything to cleanse pallet between.

Here are the pictures of the beer tasted:

16 17 bottles hbt-4503.jpg


16 17 glass hbt-.jpg
 
Conclusions.

I found that a 3 kettle / 3 burner boil for 60 minutes produced beer nearly indistinguishable from a 1 kettle / 1 burner boil for 140 minutes although both boils resulted in similar levels of evaporation.

In addition, both boil regimens produced beer substantially darker than the calculated 4.6 SRM predicted by beer alchemy.

(Edited to add following note)
I wan to re-taste soon using wider mouth glasses to see if the hop aroma is really different. Seems a surprising result since primary hop aroma contributions should have come from post boil additions.
 
Thanks


Yes well about smelling velvet. I was trying to describe a somewhat softer nose than I got with the 16. There I go again. I need more tasting practice clearly.

Cheers
 
I'm back...Noticed these beers cleared remarkably over the last few days. Plus I'm still working on my beer photography. So here are some new pics. I can't say for sure but 16 does look darker. I say can't say for sure because the lighting set up is not equally balanced. Work in progress...

3-kettles 60 min
16-glass-backlight-4536-59078.jpg


1-kettle 140 min
17-glass-backlight-4539-59077.jpg


Side by side
16-and-17-glass-backlight-4543-59076.jpg


Thanks for following...
 

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