water question on all grain first try

I am set up tomorrow to go all grain all in! have done some partials but now the big step.
Question?
After I mash, sparge, etc. and am ready for boil, how much volume of wort/water should be in my kettle for a 5.5g batch with a 60 minute boil?
I know a lot of factors at work here. Kettle is big, 15 g as I ordered with the intent to get to 10 g beers eventually.
Heat will be from burner/propane I use outdoors for turkey fryer so unsure of my loss at boiling?
11.5 lb. grain

thanks

Depends on how vigorous your boil is. I'd shoot for 6.75-7 gallons pre boil.

enkamania said:

Depends on how vigorous your boil is. I'd shoot for 6.75-7 gallons pre boil.

Click to expand...

Ditto!

You are better off with reducing your boil vigor and covering the kettle almost completely. In a 5 gal batch, you are better off by limiting the total evaporation loss to less than 10% of the original volume. So in your case, about a half gallon of loss should be a goal. That reduces the heat stress on your wort which creates thiobarbituric acid in your wort. That is one of the components that cause beer to oxidize prematurely, so you don't want to create it.

I learned about this 6 months ago and have revised my approach to boiling and my beers have improved and their longevity has increased. By the way, keeping the evaporation loss to under 10% is what the pro's do. We should too.

thank you all

thanks for the replys

Great information Martin!

I always thought that covering your wort during the boil prevents the escape of dimethylsulfide (DMS)? Which can give you off flavors, or so I thought. Is this a pick the lesser of two evils kind of situation?

I guess I never thought about this in professional breweries but you're exactly right! Thats what they do.

I think that there was a brulosopher's ex-beeriment that showed that as long as the boil was fairly decent, enough stuff escaped that DMS precursors were still driven off even with a covered kettle...

jtratcliff said:

I think that they was a brulosopher's ex-beeriment that showed that as long as the boil was fairly decent, enough stuff escaped that DMS precursors were still driven off even with a covered kettle...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, I found that xBmt and it's pretty interesting. It showed that there wasn't much of a difference in detectable DMS with a lid on or off boil. It also showed that the boil off rate was the same, but this could be setup dependent. I usually lose ~ 1.5 gallons in my 10 gallon megapot during the boil.

http://brulosophy.com/2016/10/31/the-boil-lid-on-vs-lid-off-exbeeriment-results/

So, maybe the ultimate accomplishment here is like Martin said, to decrease boil vigor and reduce thiobarbituric acid (which I must say is new to me). I think I'm going to follow his advice on the next batch, and boil with the lid on. Thanks for the education

Well first all grain brew was good. Time will tell on finished product.
Mash temp called for 154 and I got 150!!!!!! I added some 170 water to raise a degree.
Ended up leaving it 70 minutes instead of 60. Did preheat the cooler but brewing in garage and adding my water at 166 was obviously not good enough. Hope being a few degrees off will not harm much.

As to my earlier question on water volume.

Brew was for 5.5 gallons and I started boil at 7. Ended with a gravity reading of 1.052 and called for 1.058.

For sparge......... was a bit confused here. Drained 5 1 litre pictures out and repoured in cooler/ tun over tinfoil with holes. Then added some 175 sparge water and drained into kettle at same time. Did this for about 20 minutes as run off was getting clear and I had 7 gallons collected.

Boil went fine and similar to my previous partials I have done. Went right to carboy with intentions of leaving it there 3 weeks then keg. Usually go to the bucket and then carboy but trying this .

thanks for the help

mabrungard said:

You are better off with reducing your boil vigor and covering the kettle almost completely. In a 5 gal batch, you are better off by limiting the total evaporation loss to less than 10% of the original volume. So in your case, about a half gallon of loss should be a goal. That reduces the heat stress on your wort which creates thiobarbituric acid in your wort. That is one of the components that cause beer to oxidize prematurely, so you don't want to create it.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info martin, any sources OTOH?

mabrungard said:

You are better off with reducing your boil vigor and covering the kettle almost completely. In a 5 gal batch, you are better off by limiting the total evaporation loss to less than 10% of the original volume. So in your case, about a half gallon of loss should be a goal. That reduces the heat stress on your wort which creates thiobarbituric acid in your wort. That is one of the components that cause beer to oxidize prematurely, so you don't want to create it.

Click to expand...

Facinating. Ive always heard to boil the piss out of it! Will implement this technique starting with my next batch.

What we consider standard procedure today will be proven ineffective and passé tomorrow. Things are a changin'.......

Just did an IPA today with my BK covered, and kept a low boil. I lost less than half a gallon to evaporation, so less than 10% loss. Would usually lose ~1.5 gallons with a vigorous boil. Pre-boil gravity went from 1.055 to 1.062 post-boil. Probably going to do my boil this way from now on...for now I fear the thiobarbituric acid.