Making beer....piece meal

So this idea is definately not going to be the way to go for 'perfect' beers, but I thought of this the other day when my stove took forever to get water boiling while making a batch (DME based)....

What are the downfalls of using only 1 gallon or so in the boil? Does boiling the extract sugars actually change much of their characteristics before you pitch? It seems to me that if you could dissolve all the DME in 4 gallons of water and put that in your fermenter, then steep grains/boil hops in only 1 gallon of water you could save yourself a lot of time by not having to wait for water to boil, and also not having to wait for so much water to cool down before pitching yeast.

Comments?

boiling the wort causes a lot of important things to happen. for all grain brewers, you're boiling off Dimethyl Sulfide, and you're creating hot break, for a clearer beer.

for everyone, it's also how you bitter the wort with hops. the thicker your gravity, the harder it is to bitter, so you need more hops...adn we're in a hop shortage right now. you get more bang for your buck with a full boil.

Boiling also sterilizes the D/LME, so you should boil it all even if you do it in multiple smaller batches. Also, I believe you need some D/LME in the boil when you boil your hops. At minimum you'll need to adjust your hop additions to accommodate your boil gravity.

Search HBT for "partial boils", or check the wiki. That should get you the info you need to do it right, but you're on the right track if you're stuck boiling on your stove.

Look up information on 'late extract addition' as well. That combined with a partial boil will give you great beers.

This is a great time of the year to pick up a turkey fryer. I just bought one for $30.00 on clearance. I then bought a used 20lb propane tank on carigs's list for $10.00.