First all grain question

I'm in the middle of my first all grain brew. It's a Northern Brewer oatmeal stout. My question is should I keep boiling past 60 minutes to get my boil volume down to 5.25 gallons? Right now I'm at about 5.75 gallons about to hit 60 minutes. Only one hop addition at 60 minutes.

Yep won't hurt anything to boil longer

Thanks, that's what I thought.

No problems boiling longer.

Depends on your boil off rate though. If you boil off a half gallon in 60 minutes, that puts you right on target if you add the hops now assuming 5.25 is the target volume.
Try and estimate how much you will boil off in 60 mins during hop boil. Then you will know about how much more you need to boil off before adding hops.

I would go another 30 mins, and then check your og. If its off you could add some dme to get close to your target. This being your first ag, you might be surprised how your efficiency turned out.

Got the volume down to just over 5 1/4 gallons. Chilling right now.

This being my first all grain, full boil, I had to estimate my boil off rate. Based on the equipment I put into Beersmith, it recommended 6.25 gals for a target of 5.25. I came in a little high after sparging at about 6.75 gals boil volume. So now I know my boil off rate is about 1 gal/hr. My fermenter ended up with almost exactly 5.25 gals without dumping in the gunk at the bottom of the kettle. Pitched at 68F and she's all put away. OG was 1.052 and Beersmith targeted 1.048. The recipe targeted 1.042. My pre-boil SG was 1.046. I'll have to start plugging in some numbers to see what my efficiency was. My target mash temp was 156F which was 3 degrees higher than the recipe called for. I was hoping for a little more body to this brew. I ended up mashing at 154F and after an hr only lost 1 degree. Very happy with my DIY MLT. And damn, did those grains smell great! The recipe called for mashout at 170F but I skipped that since I batch sparged with 170F water. All in all, I feel things went pretty well for my first all grain. Thanks for everyone jumping in so quickly with answers during brewing. I can always count on this forum.

It's worth remembering that water expands when heated. 5.75 gallons at boil = about 5.52 gallons at 68F.

So Beersmith calculates my measured efficiency at 82.7%. Brewers Friend calculates brewhouse efficiency at 83.23% I'm very pleased for my first all grain attempt. Thought I'd document my day with some photo's.

Preparing to Mash In


Mashing completed, wort heating to boil. That's my Cream Ale Home brew on my MLT


Spent Grains...they smelled awesome!


Wort to a boil, about to add Glacier hops


In the fermenter. Will rack to secondary over some vanilla beans in 10-14 days

Just keep in mind your hop utilization; If you boil longer you can lose hop aroma/flavor. So, yes there's no problem. Not trying be a downer, but I just figured I'd mention that it can mess with the hop utilization.

My practice is after a few batches, you'll learn your boil off rate. Which is a fixed standard regardless of volume. Once you learn this if you over shoot your volume you can boil off BEFORE you add any hops. That will keep your IBUs where you expect them to be and keep things consistent. Just a tip for future batches to help increase your beers. Congrats on your first AG brew!

Wow - you were a lot more organized than I was on my first all-grain. My work area looked like a bomb had just gone off.

Actually, it still does.