My first full boil!

Well, I made an amber this weekend which turned out really, really amber (we'll see how it clarifies, but brown is more the word for this beer) and I figured I'd start with a little under 7 gallons of water and boil down to 5.25. Well, I boiled for like 15 minutes with one bag of DME in there, threw in my hops, boiled for 50 minutes, added the second bag of DME, boiled another ten, added more hops, and then boiled for the final 10 minutes.

So I boiled for a total of 85 minutes and it only boiled off about a gallon of water. I have at least 5.75 gallons in my carboy now and my OG was at 1.054 when I was expecting about 1.058-1.060. I'm thinking that I still did ok, but I expected to lose more water.

What is the typical evaporative rate for boiling for you guys? Is it really all dependent on the pot you're using and all that?

It depends on multiple variables.

I think 10-15% is typical.

Was this a kit? If so, the hop schedule probably didn't account for a full boil. No tragedy but you now have an IPA on your hands.

I just did my first boil. I started with 5 gallons and then added the 6.6lbs of LME. After an hour of boil time I was down to about 4.75 gallons. So I lost 1/4 of a gallon of water plus what ever the LME works out to be. I "think" (remember this was my first) that if I had started with 6.5 gallons it would have worked out right or damn close.

but either way, having to add in an extra .75 of water did not bother me. And my OG was right were it should have been.

Although multiple factors affect evaporative rate, the two biggest ones are:
1) Did you have the lid on or off?
2) How high was the burner turned up?

I have a 55k BTU turkey fryer turned up as high as I can before (I'm sure there's a technical term for this) there's a space between the flame and the burner. And typically I get 5.5 gallons from a 60 minute boil which started with around 6.5 gallons.

Bobby_M said:

Was this a kit? If so, the hop schedule probably didn't account for a full boil. No tragedy but you now have an IPA on your hands.

Click to expand...

No, it was not a kit. I just formulated a recipe for an amber and used a program to calculate the IBUs within range of the style, so I only used 1 oz. of Vanguard hops for the boil, plus the late hop addition, which ended up around 22 if I recall.

So I really doubt it'll be an IPA at all. I tasted the wort and smelled it a lot while it was boiling and the hops were still not in my face, so that is not an issue.

I think I'll try my next beer (tonight) with 6.5 gallons of water and see how that gets me.

BassBurner said:

Although multiple factors affect evaporative rate, the two biggest ones are:
1) Did you have the lid on or off?
2) How high was the burner turned up?

I have a 55k BTU turkey fryer turned up as high as I can before (I'm sure there's a technical term for this) there's a space between the flame and the burner. And typically I get 5.5 gallons from a 60 minute boil which started with around 6.5 gallons.

Click to expand...

Lid off. I've been led to believe that having the lid on can be bad. It is a giant 42 quart pot, so I am actually using it on my stove over two burners.