Cincinnati pale ale wort volume

All -

I'm gearing up to make my first beer (after successfully making a grapefruit wine and a hard cider), hooray!!

I'm starting with the Cincinnati Pale Ale recipe in from, "How to Brew." I'm sure a few of you have read it.

In the description of making the wort, John says to boil about 2 gallons of water and later, once the wort has been chilled, to add water to final volume of 5 gallon.

Why start with only 2 gallon? Why not start with 4 gallons? It seems that you run the risk of contaminating the wort by adding such a large volume of water after the wort has cooled.

Thanks for the help!

 

In almost all circumstances if you can boil the entire volume you are better off. I have not read that book but if you can do a full boil do it. The only thing that changes with a lower boil volume is the bitterness. You might want to research that on this forum!

 

the book was written for those who do not have a 8 gallon brewpot, so you brew 2 gallons to make up for lack of space, IF you are going to do that, boil the other water you will be putting in the fermenter and after cooling it down, put it in a sealed sanitized container till you brew. That way your extra water is not going carry any bad little things with it.

I target 5.5 gallons into the fermenter so I can leave lose .5 gallons to testing and the lees in the bottom when fermentation is over.

 

Great! I have an 8 gal boiling pot so I'll most likely boil 4 gallons, cool the wort, transfer to the fermenter, then add water (boiled then cooled) to 5 gallons. I'll have to read more about how boil volume relates to bitterness to see if I need to adjust my hops.

Thanks!