Boil Experiment - how long is too long?

In prep for my brew day saturday and my first partial i decided to see just how long it would take to boil water on my gas stove.

I put 4.5 gallons of water into my brew pot and cranked on the burner. It took between 90 and 100 mins to reach boil.

I figure i will be boiling less than 4.5 gallons and the starting temperature of my wort will be about 160degrees so that time should come down significantly - im thinking 80 minutes tops (hoping to reach boil in 60).

I was wondering if worst came to worst and i didnt get the wort boiling for over 90 mins - if that would be a problem.

im sure the quicker you reach a boil the better and im debating buying a turkey fryer. However, i would love to be able to save some cash and brew inside.

90-100 minutes is waaaay too long to bring it to a boil. It won't hurt anything, but it will drive you mad. Could you just boil 3 gallons and then top off with water at the end? I assume you were going to top off anyways.

Also, see if you can straddle two burners with your pot and turn them both on high. That's the only way my stove top will get my water boiling.

If you can afford the turkey fryer, get it. You won't regret it one bit.

well if i was doing an all extract kit i would do 3 gallons but im doing a partial so i will have the sparge and the steeping water to take into account - not sure how much steeping water i will be using but i imagine it will be about 2 gallons and than the sparge water will also be about 2 gallons i think.

making it so i have to boil 4 gallons or so

im thinking though since i will have a pot with water at 160 degrees and a pot with water at 170 degrees that when i mix the 2 and start the boil it will reach 212 degrees much faster than 90-100 minutes.

Ah sorry I overlooked where you mentioned it was a partial. Yea that will cut a ton of time off your wait. If not, you can always figure out what to do from there. Would the 2 burner option I mentioned work for you?

yes, i straddled the burners on a brew i did before - however im not sure how much that actually helped - perhaps i will do another experiment later tonight or tomorrow and see the difference.

thanks

You could also build an electric heat stick to give you a boost to boil.

What about microwaving a few gallons up to a boil before throwing it in the pot????

Use more pots/burners. Get your 4 largest pots, and split the volume between them.

+1 on split boil. That's how I do full volume 5 gallon (5 gallon ending volume) AG brews. I use deathbrewers stovetop method (holding up 12 pounds of grain in the bag is friggin heavy, btw) and then do split boils after mixing the mash+sparge well to even out the gravity.

portalgod said:

+1 on split boil. That's how I do full volume 5 gallon (5 gallon ending volume) AG brews. I use deathbrewers stovetop method (holding up 12 pounds of grain in the bag is friggin heavy, btw) and then do split boils after mixing the mash+sparge well to even out the gravity.

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cool - i actually sent deathbrewer a couple private messages and he suggested the same thing - i think i will definitely end up splitting the boil.

when you do that though - do you add all the extract/hops to the same pot or split that to? i would assume it wouldn't make a difference either way but i rather ask and look stupid than not ask and mess up.

HomelessWook said:

im debating buying a turkey fryer.

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I gotta say the turkey fryer was my best investment so far. It boils water so fast. Plus the day is so much more enjoyable sitting out on the back patio drinking a beer watching the world go by. I dont miss sweating my balls off in a 102 degree kitchen while that stove takes 6 weeks to heat the water. YMMV.

Yea, i could spring for a turkey fryer but i live in an apartment and dont want to set up a bunch of brew equipment in the shared grass areas. my only option would be to brew at a friend or family members house and then transport the wort.

HomelessWook said:

cool - i actually sent deathbrewer a couple private messages and he suggested the same thing - i think i will definitely end up splitting the boil.

when you do that though - do you add all the extract/hops to the same pot or split that to? i would assume it wouldn't make a difference either way but i rather ask and look stupid than not ask and mess up.

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Since I was doing AG I didn't have any extract to add, but I try to split the hops based on the volume each pot is boiling. For example, if I have 3 pots going of the same size, I split each hop addition per the recipe by 1/3 and add that to each pot.

So if the recipe calls for 3oz Tettnanger at 60 minutes, I put 1 oz in each pot. So just take a look at the relative size of your pots in relation to eachother and split the hop / extract additions in that proportion.