partial mash and full boils

So i've been partial mashing few a few batches now and have had good luck with it. This next one brew session will be my first using my 10 gallon pot and propane burner.

I was running the numbers just now and realized i don't know what to do with my water numbers. With my partial mashes i would usually mash in with 1.25 qts per lb and sparge with roughly the same amount. This would gave me my partial boil volume of around 3 gallons.

So, if i'm doing a full boil, should i just take my 3 gallons and top up to ~6 + to get my full boil volume? Or should i run more water through on my sparge than just the 1.25 qts/lb i have been doing? I remember reading that sparging with too much water will start to extract tannins.

I assume that topping up to my boil volume wont do any harm and will just dilute my wort. Which shouldn't be an issue because adding my extract with 15 minutes left will bring me back up to my O.G.

Any help would be appreciated.

Make your wort the way you have been and top off for a couple batches.

Don't forget to adjust the amount of bittering hops. Full boils and late extract addition both increase utilization and you could end up with overly bitter beer.

Holy dead thread batman!

I've been doing a number of searches regarding some mini-mashes and full boil.

I can full boil 5-6 gallons on my stove indoors. I have an American Pale Ale and a Brown Mini-mash from Austin Homebrew (AHS).

The recipe says to do the mini-mash part, which is fine, no problem. I leave it in for a bit longer than they say (their recipe says 20, but most books I've read say 30). I think that should be fine. Is that fine to do with the whole 5 gallons or not? Cause I did :rockin:

I then did the full boil thing. The recipe had me add 3/4 oz hops at the start (bittering), and then the last 1/4 oz in the last 15 minutes (aroma).

I adjusted that to be more 50/50 because of the extra bittering. Since the first addition was the bittering hops, I just reduced that amount and then dumped the rest all in at the aroma stage. Is that fine? I don't mind a hoppy beer, but didn't want it to be bitter due to the full boil. Did I achieve what I set out to do?

Just trying to get a little more fidelity on the differences between the partial-boil recipe, and what to do with the full boil.

I did the American Pale Ale, but I ran out of ice before it got down to pitching temperature. So I let it sit covered over night, and then pitched the yeast (which after shaking and then opening exploded on me!). The wort probably wasn't very oxygenated at that point. 24 hours later and no bubbling, but I'll wait until 48 or 72 before I open it up and stir/add something to kick-start the yeast.

What do you guys think? I'm going to be doing the brown in a couple of days, and would like to refine my technique a little