Adding water to wort midboil

[Yoda]

Due to only having an 8qt pot at the moment, I am unable to do a full boil for my 2 gallon batches. So my first go round I did 1.25 gallons, seemingly had a ton of boil off, and then topped off at the end to make my 2 gallons (barely had enough boiled/cooled water left).

Is that any more/less effective than if I were to say, add a quart of water 30 minutes into the boil? I guess if I added non boiling water it would take away my boil...would I lose efficiency from my hops as well?

Guess I am just wondering if I should stick with topping off, or have something to gain by adding water to the wort midway through.

 

[McGarnigle]

I've tried this before, albeit by adding boiling water so as not to disrupt the wort boil. I can't say what effect it had either way. Of course, if you had the pot and stove to accommodate, you could just do a split boil.

I'm guessing that adding cool water mid-flight isn't worth it, as losing the boil might screw up your timing, etc. As you're brewing small batches, the size of your top-off relative to your batch isn't that bad right now.