Full boil extract

Call me an idiot if you must... but after years of doing partial boil extracts and always wonder "what would happen if I boiled all 5 gallons?"... I finally found a great thread on this site relating to this topic. Now with my recently purchased wort chiller I'm ready to give it a shot.

I spent some time on the Beer Recipitator web site and played around with the recipe. Seems I could pull back on the hops a bit if I wanted, but may not even be necessary with this brew.

Any other suggestions as I attempt my first full (almost probably boil about 4.5 gal) boil? Is it worth attempting a late DME addition also, this is new to me too and want to try it but maybe I should only make one change at a time.

Yes, you *may* have to make hop adjustments but the most important thing IMO regarding extract brewing is doing the 'Late Extract Addition' (meaning, adding the extract at the last 15 minutes of the boil)

This appears to have the biggest effect on your final product.
(That and proper ferm temps)
-Me

In my opinion, if you're doing a full boil already, adding the extract late won't give you any benefits. You want to simulate the boil of an AG batch, so either a late extract addition OR a full boil would be a good way to do it.

If you're only boiling 4.5 gallons, that should boil down to 3.25 gallons or so so it'd still be a partial boil, albeit a larger one than most. So, in that case you can probably do both. Use some brewing software (there are some free ones on the internet, and Beersmith has a free trial) to check out the results you'll get with color, IBUs, etc.

Once you can boil and cool all 5 gallons effectively there's only two or three pieces of equipment between you and all grain.

YooperBrew said:

In my opinion, if you're doing a full boil already, adding the extract late won't give you any benefits. You want to simulate the boil of an AG batch, so either a late extract addition OR a full boil would be a good way to do it.

If you're only boiling 4.5 gallons, that should boil down to 3.25 gallons or so so it'd still be a partial boil, albeit a larger one than most. So, in that case you can probably do both. Use some brewing software (there are some free ones on the internet, and Beersmith has a free trial) to check out the results you'll get with color, IBUs, etc.

Click to expand...

While this is true I personally still like to do my extract additions late to help prevent scorching on the bottom of my kettle - but Yooper is correct.
5 gallon boils and late extract additions are (kind of) the same purpose yielding methods.
-Me

i've just started brewing and all have been full boils, diffucult in a turkey fryer kettle with adjusting to boil off amount and boil overs

So that being said full boils seems to have less steps. i just top off when cooling the wort and haven't adjusted the hops yet ( I like hoppy beers)

good luck

I have done 3 full boils, one being a hophead IPA and I did not adjust the amount of hops and I feel it tastes just like first batch I did as a partial boil. If you are going to full boil I started with 6 gallons and ended up around 5 gallons give or take a quart or two. I did not do late additions either and the turned out better then my partial boil batches.