Boil size

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PearlJamNoCode

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I've got a 5.5 gallon steel boil pot but I'm doing my boil on my home electric stove with burners that look like this...
istockphoto_250950_burner_on_stove.jpg


I test boiled about 2 gallons just to see how long it would take to boil. Its gonna take a while to get up to temperature, but what would your suggestions be as for my maximum boil size? I don't think a full boil is possible considering I wont have much room to work with in regards to boil overs. Worst comes to worst, I could bump up the temperature on my house's water heater to have a higher start temperature.
 
I had about 3.5Gallons in a 5 gallon pot and didn't have boil overs, although I had a spray bottle close and use it a few times. I used hop pellets, liquid candi sugar and LME. You would probably want to be about the same to be really safe and not risk it. If you boil it for an hour that gives you about 3 gallons (that's what Brewsmith calculated).
 
Thanks... I'll be using hop pellets, lactose, and about 6lbs of DME if that makes any difference. Any idea how long it would take to chill 3 gallons of wort using an ice bath?
 
PearlJamNoCode said:
Thanks... I'll be using hop pellets, lactose, and about 6lbs of DME if that makes any difference. Any idea how long it would take to chill 3 gallons of wort using an ice bath?

with 3x10# bags of ice and a clean kitchen sink it will take less than 30 minutes
 
also, never start with hot water. hot water heaters are NASTY inside...even though we're boiling it to sterilize, there's still likely to be leftover minerals.

I'd stick to 3.5 gallon boils at the most. shouldn't try to boilover too bad, and you'll end up with about 3gallons after evaporation.
 
I boiled 3 gallons of water with my 5 gallon pot. I didn't have any boil over problems nor it seemed that I had any boil over because of the size of the pot.
 

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