Extract full boil (hops change)

Hi there, I am planning on doing my first full boil. Is there an adjustment I need to do with addition of hops to reflect the full boil?

Most likely you will use less hops for the same amount of bitterness. This is a pretty good free website to use for recipe calculations:

http://hbd.org/recipator/

Full boils follow the recipe as written...

Depends. If you're using a kit with a recipe and hops schedule/bill that was developed for a 2 1/2 gallon boil, then you may want to reduce your bittering hops. 20% is a number I've seen thrown around quite a bit.

I know the first IPA I did with a full boil was over hopped.

waldoar15 said:

I know the first IPA I did with a full boil was over hopped.

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Impossible!

I do full boils and I just say f' it. Toss them all in as scheduled. I don't think that I would be able to tell the difference anyways.

I have been doing full boils (6.5 to 7 gallons pre-boil in the kettle) using kits that specify a partial boil. I had been just using the hops as indicated in the kits and I found that the results were always on the bitter side. They didn't cause the beer to become bad or anything, just more bitter than I liked. This was especially true of the kolsch kits from brewer's best. It is supposed to be a lighter beer, but the bitterness was a bit strong.

As an experiment, I brewed up a kolsch 2 days ago from the brewer's best kit and instead of a 60 minute boil I reduced it to 50 minutes. I am hoping for a slightly reduced bitterness. I intend to keep messing with the timing until I get the bitterness where I like it.

Its up to you. If your beer is too bitter for your taste, add it later or add less. You have 'settlement authority' in this matter.

I will be honest and say that I can't equate a bitterness level with the IBUs spit out by the calculators. While I can tell bitter from not bitter, I just don't have the background to understand how a calculated decrease of 'X IBUs' impacts a beer. So for me, using the online calculators isn't a useful option. I'll have to use trial and error to find the proper bittering levels.

I am going to brew Austin Home Brew supplies blue moon clone, so I am thinking maybe putting in like 80% of the hops after reading these posts. Maybe Forrest has a comment on this, but for now I think that is what I will try.