Why Is is boilng more, better?

A friend and I were talking tonight and realized we have no clue on some areas of hops. Kinda gave us some good questions to ask but the biggest was:

Why do you get better hops utilization with Whole boil batches vs. partial?

Is it a super saturation thing? Is it a diffusion of AA reaching an equilibrium with the hop and the available water?

Just wondering.

drumming102 said:

A friend and I were talking tonight and realized we have no clue on some areas of hops. Kinda gave us some good questions to ask but the biggest was:

Why do you get better hops utilization with Whole boil batches vs. partial?

Is it a super saturation thing? Is it a diffusion of AA reaching an equilibrium with the hop and the available water?

Just wondering.

Click to expand...

In general larger vessels will get marginally better utilization such that 50 barrel brewers get 10% more or so than 5 gallon brewers.

Partial boil batches don't have materially lower utilization than full boil batches, that is a myth. What is true is that break material binds alpha acids and lowers utilization. High gravity beers have more break and lower utilization. Since malt extract does not produce much break, boiling 50% volume on a 1.050 beer will have utilization closer to a 1.050 full boil than a 1.100 full boil.

So what do full boils gain you over partials?

drumming102 said:

So what do full boils gain you over partials?

Click to expand...

Less maillard reactions, lighter colored wort, better hops utilization.