Kettle size & to Full Boil or Not

hello everyone.
ive been vigorously reading up on home brewing and shopping around for beginner kits and think I found the right one (Northern Brewers Deluxe kit).

But i'm not sure what size kettle I should start out with..

I'll be starting with extract kits and specialty grains. Is it worth it to buy a big 30+ quart for a full boil or should I just boil around 2.5 gallons and add cold water to get 5 gallons?

IMO, I would go with a full boil if you can, the guys that got me into brewing do partials, they make good beer, but we agree the full boil makes a difference.

thanks for the reply. I'm thinking I'll just go ahead and buy a bigger kettle (36 quarts). I can always experiment with both but atleast I won't need to upgrade to bigger equipment if I decide to full boil.

I second camus' opinion; get as big a pot as you can afford and try to do full-wort boils.

Full boil would be better, but only if you have a way to get that much wort boiling. A stove might not be strong enough. Also, you'll need to consider that cooling a larger volume of boiling wort will be much more difficult, so you will most likely want a wort chiller as well.

@Dreg

Wasn't really thinking how hard it'd be to boil 5 gallons, shoot. And I'm on an electric stove

Maybe I should purchase a propane burner as well and brew outside? Either way, glad I'm considering all of these things before getting off to a bad start. Thanks

I would get a 10 gallon kettle for 5 gallon batches. Better to have a pot large enough (now) for when you go all grain. That way, you don't need to get another kettle later that is larger.

I picked up the 10 gallon Blichmann over the weekend. I have a 32qt kettle that I've been using so far. But so many of my batches had me nervous, even when using fermcap, that I'd have boil-over. Or I had boil-over due to too hard a boil going on (quickly caught since I never stray from my cooking wort). Now, I shouldn't have an issue with my normal 5 gallon batch boil volumes. I should even be good for larger pre-boil volumes with this kettle... I'm keeping my old 32qt kettle, since that will be perfect for heating the mash-out and sparge water in. Especially with the ball valve (fitted with a male QD)... :rockin:

I am picking up a turkey fryer from home depot for 60 bucks. It kills a lot of birds at once. Even the aluminum is easier to cool. Then I have my eyes on a keggle down the road.

Go bigger! I got a 5 gallon when I was allowed to brew in the kitchen, now that I have been sent outdoors I just got a 10 gallon. I should have just gotten the 10 gallon and a propane cooker in the first place.

+1 for full boil capable kettle. You will want it by batch #3 if you don't have it.

A little outside the scope of your question, but if you go full boil (Do it if you can!) then don't forget to reduce your bittering hops by 20% if using a "kit" recipe. At least for lighter less hoppy bees. Otherwise you perfect brew will probably be more bitter than you desire.

Err beers. But watch out for those hoppy bees too.

Get the bigger kettle.

I started brewing in January, with a setup from Midwest that included a 5 gallon pot -it has been great, but I am limited to extract partial boil recipes only. My 10 gallon pot should arrive this week, which will allow me to do full boil extract, as well as allowing me to move to all grain via the brew-in-a-bag method.

Why get a $50 pot now and a $100+ pot in a few months when you can just get the bigger pot now and spend the difference on making more beer?

check ebay. There are 40qt aluminum pots for $43 shipped