Full 5 Gallon Boil (Extract)

Hey folks,

In my next step up the homebrew ladder i'm going to move onto 5 gallon boils. My question is do I need to do anything different in terms of ingredients of kits/extract recipes? I think I remember reading somewhere about adjustments that need to be made if you plan on doing 5 gallon boils. All of the kits and majority of the recipies I find are geared towards a 2.5 gallon boil and then "top off" your primary.

Thanks in advance

Bob

Welcome to HBT!

You will get better hop utilization with full boils. You might want to reduce the hop schedule ever so slightly to compensate.
How are you going to cool the wort? You will need a chiller or something to get the wort to pitching temperature as quick as possible.

You don't need to do anything different. A kit is for 5 gallons whether all 5 are boiled or whether you're diluting it later in the carboy. Doesn't matter. FYI, I usually start with 6.5 gal to account for evaporation during boil as well as transfer loss between brew pot and primary, then primary to secondary, then secondary to keg.

Yep i've got a pretty good 1/2 wort chiller that's served me well. I made it a while ago with the foresight of doing full 5 gallon boils. When you say "ever so slightly" what are we talking? .25oz? or a "fraction" of what is originally called for? Do you think it is the same for Bittering as it would be for Aroma hops?

Thanks for the welcome! it's great to be here.

Listen to RichBrewer. Your hops will have to be adjusted. If you don't have brew software, download the trail version of BrewSmith. It will give you all the information that you need to balance your recipe.

anoldur said:

Listen to RichBrewer. Your hops will have to be adjusted. If you don't have brew software, download the trail version of BrewSmith. It will give you all the information that you need to balance your recipe.

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Thanks for the info. I was about to post about full 5 gallon boils. My last batch I used two pots each with 3 gallons and split the hops. I noticed that the beer was a lot more bitter than any store bought beer I ever had. Only had to add about 1/2 gallon to the primary after everything cooled. Since I'm more into the stuff like Labatt's, Bud, Foster's, and other lighter beers, knowing I can cut back is great news. (especially at $3 an ounce for hops.)

Generally, you can reduce the bittering hops by 25% if your recipe calls for a 2.5 gallon boil, and you are doing a full boil. Usually, I start with 6 gallons and end up with just a tad over 5 going into the fermenter.

As someone else said, brewing software can really help you make sure you get the expected bitterness. The first time I did a full boil, the bitterness was about twice what I expected. It was a recipe I had done before, and done as a partial boil. After that, I downloaded Beersmith to help me prevent that from happening again! You also can reduce the hopping if you do a late-extract addition; that is, adding the majority of the extract with 15 minutes left in the boil. The beer stays lighter colored, and the hops utilization greatly increases.

YooperBrew said:

Generally, you can reduce the bittering hops by 25% if your recipe calls for a 2.5 gallon boil, and you are doing a full boil. Usually, I start with 6 gallons and end up with just a tad over 5 going into the fermenter.

As someone else said, brewing software can really help you make sure you get the expected bitterness. The first time I did a full boil, the bitterness was about twice what I expected. It was a recipe I had done before, and done as a partial boil. After that, I downloaded Beersmith to help me prevent that from happening again! You also can reduce the hopping if you do a late-extract addition; that is, adding the majority of the extract with 15 minutes left in the boil. The beer stays lighter colored, and the hops utilization greatly increases.

Click to expand...

Wow, I downloaded BeerSmith to try out. There is a ton of info in there and it will take a while to learn everything. One thing I was able to do is make two of the same recipies, one using a 2.5 gallon boil and the other using a full 6 gallon boil, both for a 5 gallon batch size.

The original recipe that called for a 2.5 gallon boil called for 2 oz of hops for 60 minutes and .25 for 15 minutes. to give me 16.6 IBUs

The full boil recipe, getting 16.9 IBUs required just 1oz of hops for 60 minutes and the .25oz for 15 minutes.

What I find even cooler is that the software was able to estimate the OG and FG very close to what my recipe sheet has and even figured out a very similar ABV%

Time will tell when I taste the beer after lagering, but if this works, I'll be buying the licensed version and proclaiming to the world how great it is! (to think I could save $3 in hops on every batch with this software):rockin:

you could also use www.recipator.com. It's free software that you can use that will help you until you can afford to buy the full beersmith.