Adding Water vs. Not

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violinguy

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After the holidays, I'm going to start doing bigger batches; 2.5-3 gallons. I know that for 5 gallon batches, a lot of people boil 2-3 gallons and add water before pitching yeast. In my case, is it preferred to boil the whole 3 gallons, or to boil a smaller amount and add water? Is there a difference in the beer between a full boil vs. boiling a smaller amount and adding water?

It seems like the reason people add water for 5-gallon batches is because a lot of stoves won't boil 5 gallons. Mine will boil 3-4 gallons so either way, I'm game.
 
Good question!!!!

And here's a thread that may, or may not, help you find the answer you seek.;)

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=373674

Personally, there's only a 17 litre brew kettle at my disposal so I do MaxiBIAB, 5 gallon batches. Try to keep the BK as close to the very upper limit as possible on boils, 60 to 90 minutes depending on grist, and always top off a few litres at the end to get up to 20.5 litres into the fermentor.

My take on it is, if you can go full volume then go for it. If not, there isn't going to be a huge difference in the quality of the end product and there are other areas that can impact the quality of your beer far more severely.:mug:
 
You need to start by doing a boil test on your stove.
Measure 4 gallons of water and get it boiling. After 60 minutes, turn it off, let it cool down and measure how much volume you've got left.
Evaporation rates vary with the size of the vessel, how much heat is applied and other factors, so you need to test your actual system so you know how much pre-boil volume you'll need to obtain a desired ending volume and gravity.
Here's an article that explains some of the advantages/disadvantages of partial volume boil:

https://www.homebrewsupply.com/learn/full-boil-versus-partial-boil-homebrewing.html
 
My take on it is, if you can go full volume then go for it. If not, there isn't going to be a huge difference in the quality of the end product and there are other areas that can impact the quality of your beer far more severely

+1 I do a partial boil - it works well. I use late extract addition to keep a reasonable boil gravity and minimize maillard reactions. One limitation is with very bitter beers. Most literature shows max IBU's to be about 100. If you boil half of your volume and top off, you're limited to 50 IBU's in the final beer. I don't target anything above that, but if you do, be aware of this.

Topping off also gives you some issues with sanitation of the top-off water and possible chlorine/chloramine in the top-off water. I haven't had any sanitation issues, and I treat the top-off with campden.

Even though the problems can be addressed, I'd go for the full boil if it's an option.
 
why dont you boil the topoff water on a different burner, with the "extra" hops to get the IBUs/flavor you want?

without opening a huge discussion on gravity/sugars/pH/etc. vs plain water, you're still gonna get hop flavor/bitterness.

only drawback i see is that you'd have to cool the full volume.
 
why dont you boil the topoff water on a different burner, with the "extra" hops to get the IBUs/flavor you want?

without opening a huge discussion on gravity/sugars/pH/etc. vs plain water, you're still gonna get hop flavor/bitterness.

only drawback i see is that you'd have to cool the full volume.

This is kinda what I mean. Is there any benefit to the beer to boil the entire (however many) gallons vs. boiling partial and adding. If there isn't a clear advantage in terms of taste or quality, one would think partial boils are the way to go.
 
This is kinda what I mean. Is there any benefit to the beer to boil the entire (however many) gallons vs. boiling partial and adding. If there isn't a clear advantage in terms of taste or quality, one would think partial boils are the way to go.

To me, the obvious difference is that, as someone stated, top-off water may contain contaminants that a full boil would otherwise minimize. That said, I do partial boils with no problem.
 
To me, the obvious difference is that, as someone stated, top-off water may contain contaminants that a full boil would otherwise minimize. That said, I do partial boils with no problem.

so if you treat your wort water with campden, do it for hop/top off water. salts in wort water? salts in hop/top off water. treat each batch of water similarly and the only difference should be that one has malt sugars in it, the other doesnt.

even better- use the "hop" water batch as a dunk sparge for your grains, now you've got a high sugar water, and a low sugar water. split your hops up and boil same length of time, there should be no discernible difference once you combine them.
 
/\ /\ /\ +1 This is a pretty good solution/option, other than the, slight, hassle of having two different pots going on the stove and the space limitations some might have.

The top off water I use is treated with Campden and refridgerated so it helps in cooling, after boil. However, the last couple of brews have been left to cool overnight then pitched next morning, so I might try the two pot boil next time around:mug:
 
The only thing I miss about partial volume is that I could chill my top off water to just above freezing which would bring me very quickly to yeast pitching temps.
 
why dont you boil the topoff water on a different burner, with the "extra" hops to get the IBUs/flavor you want?

without opening a huge discussion on gravity/sugars/pH/etc. vs plain water, you're still gonna get hop flavor/bitterness.

only drawback i see is that you'd have to cool the full volume.

Boiling the hops in plain water is believed to give an inferior quality to the bitterness. See this BYO article: http://byo.com/stories/item/1549-upping-ibus-stopping-enzymes-mr-wizard
 
If you don't mind having two separate boils going, and then cooling two kettles, you can just split the extract into the two kettles. That's exactly what I did when I brewed all-grain in order to brew 5 gallon batches on the stove. It worked fine, but a bit of a hassle.
 
Normally after I've mashed, I put my mash bag in a second kettle with warm/hot water that makes up the rest of the volume, steep for bit and drain the bag and then boil it on another stove for the same time, topping off the main kettle whenever possible.
 
My experience is that I saw a noticeable difference in the quality and taste of my beers once I went to full volume boils, and the best extract batches I made before going to 5 gallon all grain, were full volume boils.
 
Boiling the hops in plain water is believed to give an inferior quality to the bitterness. See this BYO article: http://byo.com/stories/item/1549-upping-ibus-stopping-enzymes-mr-wizard

which is why i then noted that you could use the 2nd pot of water for a dunk sparge. while still not the same as full wort boil, its better than just plain water. go a little extra and adjust pH and you'll probly never really notice.

the point we all have to keep in mind is that OP says he has a tiny apartment kitchen and so he has to make do with the facility at hand.

sacrifices must be made.
 
Yes, for a five gallon batch.

For a full volume boil, couldn't he BIAB a 3 gallon batch on his stove top?

If he has a gas range with a large, higher BTU burner, he should be able to pull that off.

To me, it seems like cooling would be a bigger issue. Though he could run an IC from his sink faucet and drain into the sink drain, or recirc ice water from a bucket through the IC with a small pump.
 
i dont think he actually noted his kettle size, just said he can only boil 3-4 gallons. but if it can only boil 4 gallons, im guessing you'd probly be left with little under 3 gals when you consider trub/hops/etc.

i like the 2nd pot idea as you can dunk sparge and raise efficiency a bit. but you could just as easily boil only a quart of water at a time in the 2nd pot and just use it as topoff water while you are boiling the main batch. then you'd be able to do 3 gal batch pretty easily. and you wouldnt have to worry so much about hop utilization dropping as the wort boils off, as you'd be topping it back off to full volume with boiling water every 15-20 minutes as needed.
 
violinguy,

you don't mention it in this thread so, what method of brewing are you using?? All extract, all extracts with hop additions, extract with steeped grains and hop additions, partial mash with extract or all grain?? Also, are you using only LME or LME and DME??
The answer to your original question would vary depending on which you use.

Using only a pre-hopped LME you don't need to do a full boil anyway. In fact most kits of that vareity will tell you to boil only a few litres of water then add pre hopped/kit LME, pour the mix into the fermentor and top up with water to required volume.
Also, early addition DME with hop additions and late LME (or DME) additions, as well as partial mash with late extract additions, don't really necessitate a full volume boil either, unless you are aiming for a super high IBU brew. It's only really all grain that, supposedly, benefits so greatly from a full volume boil, and even that's somewhat debatable(other than for hitting very high IBUs).
 
i dont think he actually noted his kettle size, just said he can only boil 3-4 gallons. but if it can only boil 4 gallons, im guessing you'd probly be left with little under 3 gals when you consider trub/hops/etc.

Again depends on which brewing method.

Using MaxiBIAB, very fine crush, everything from BK into fermentor plus dry hopping and I still appear to lose only about 2 litres/2 qts(?) to trub in the fermentor when bottling.

i like the 2nd pot idea as you can dunk sparge and raise efficiency a bit. but you could just as easily boil only a quart of water at a time in the 2nd pot and just use it as topoff water while you are boiling the main batch. then you'd be able to do 3 gal batch pretty easily. and you wouldnt have to worry so much about hop utilization dropping as the wort boils off, as you'd be topping it back off to full volume with boiling water every 15-20 minutes as needed.

Last few brews I've done have been similar to this.
Usually get about 14 to 15 litres from first runnings, with which the boil is started. Sparge into a 13 litre bucket. Sparge then heated in second pot and added frequently to BK during the boil to maintain highest volume boil as possible in 17 litre kettle. I've only been collecting enough sparge to go through the boil with a little excess, so far, then added 2.5 to 3 litres of chilled top off water at the end.

Think for the next brew I'll increase sparge volume, mix 1st runnings and sparge in both pots and split hop additions for both pots, to go for a true(r), full volume boil and see if it's any better than a previous batch.
 
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