Extract Full Boil Instructions?

I have been extract brewing with specialty grain partial boils on the stove top. It was taking far too long to get 3 gallons of water to a full boil so I decided to buy a turkey fryer.

At first I thought Id just keep doing partial boils with the turkey fryer. I hadnt really thought about doing a full boil prior to this but since I now can, why not. Ultimately I will transition to AG but in the mean time I want to stick with extracts and specialty grains.

I didnt find any information on how to alter your recipe but any info would be great. Are there other threads you know of that detail this transition? Any other suggestions on how to move forward with this?

The short answer is that you don't have to alter your recipe.

The long answer is that if you want to be extremely precise, you may want to adjust the hop schedule slightly to account for the better utilization you get with a full boil. If you're a relatively new brewer your time is probably better spent just going with the recipe at hand and getting your process down.

In the end, that's the only real difference once you start doing full extract boils and no changes are necessary, but only optional if you want to dial in the hops exactly. And that's where good brewing software like beersmith comes in handy.

It is a pretty fiercely debated topic of whether or not full boild volumes affect hops utilization. I personally don't have a stance on it since neither side of the arguement is convincing. I just do everything the same with a full boil and I like the beer much better. Like you said it is a great piece of equiptment to have to transition to all grain someday!

Also consider if your original recipes were for full boil extracts.... you may now be brewing how they were originally intended

When I went to full boils, the only thing I changed was the hop additions. You need less hops with a full boil as you get better utilization. I'm not sure what the conversion is for taking a partial boil extract to full boil extract is, but if you have both the AG and the Extract version, you would simply use the hop amounts from the AG and follow the Extract recipe for everything else.

Hoping someone else can answer on the actual conversion forumla, but you should be using less hops for full boils than extract.

I've seem some folks argue that the lower wort sugar concentration / higher hop utilization correlation just simply isn't a factor for home brewers. I can't speak to the scientific accuracy of that argument either way but, I can say that I did not notice a perceptable difference in bitternes going from concentrated to full-wort boils.

I would suggest that you consider how much volume you boil off over the duration of your boil and add that to your pre-boil wort volume so you don't have to add any water to your fermenter that hasn't been boiled. Also consider adding a drain and ball valve to your kettle. I put a weldless kettle valve kit from bargainfittings.com on my kettle, soldered together some 1/2" copper pipe so that the valve would draw off of the bottom outside edge of the kettle, and screwed that into the weldless fitting. Now I whirlpool for 5 minute post-boil and draw crystal clear wort into the fermenter. You should see the pile of trub and hops left in the kettle!

As has been said, keep in mind you'll find yourself needing to allow for some additional pre-boil water to make up for the extra evaporation. I use a bit less than 6.5 gallons to start and will end up with 5 gallons by the time I'm bottling.

Also, as for the hops, I've done it both ways. I've scaled back and I've also used the full amount on batches just depends on my mood from brew to brew. To be honest, with the full amount I've yet to make a beer that I found to be too aggressively hopped. Having said that, I do enjoy hops and have had the occasional friend or two comment about bitterness on batches when I've used the full amount (although, those same guys find a great number of beers to be too bitter).

Thanks for all of the input! Sounds like I shouldn't worry too much about adjusting my recipe at first. Ill definitely talk to my brew shop when I'm buying my ingredients for the next batch. Ill have to let you know how it turns out.