Boil full batch or less?

[Oddpac87]

I was looking into buying my first kit and trying to decide on what size kettle to get.

Do most people boil the full 5 gallons? Or less and then add water in the fermenter?

Is there an advantage to one or the other?

I'm going to start with (and probably stay with for a while) only extract brewing.

 

[Yooper]

It really depends on your stove. I have a great gas stove that can easily boil 6.5 gallons on it, but most people find that their stoves struggle to boil anything over about 2.5-3 gallons. So, I'd recommend testing your stove with water to see how much you can boil. Another consideration is chilling- many people boil 2.5 gallons, chill that in the sink in an ice bath, then use cold water to chill it the rest of the way in the fermenter. If you boil 5 gallons, first, it's dangerous to carry over 5 gallons of boiling wort to the sink, plus it'll take forever to chill, and you can't add cold water to bring the temperature down.

I think those two issues are the reasons many people choose to boil less than 5 gallons in extract brewing. If you can work both of them out, you can boil a full batch without any problems.

 

[bennyd]

I started doing full boils this summer and I really feel like my beer has been better since doing the full boil. You will get better hops utilization and boiling everything will kill any potential baddies (at least until the boil is finished). You will however notice that it will take longer to cool. What size pot do you have. I use a 7.5 gallon pot and I still have to use Fermcap to avoid boilovers on my propane burner.

If you have a big enough pot, the power to boil that volume, and a way to chill it, I'd say go the full boil route.

 

[Kaz]

I just upped to an 8 gallon pot and a gas burner, thus doing full boils. Since I just started, I can't vouch for how much better they are, but it does pose a few unique problems every now and then. Such as chilling...I have an immersion chiller and it still takes me about 20-30 minutes to get to pitching temp. Also, 5 gallons of wort is pretty heavy stuff to be lugging around. You may want to plan on siphoning the cooled wort to your fermenter. Also, an 8 gallon kettle still seems to give me some grief with regards to boil overs. I start with about 6 gal. and still have to add some top off water. I think a 10 gal. would have been excellent, but the local supply wasn't there.

 

[Mmenges]

If you have he means to do a full boil then I highly suggest doing so. The problem is that many stoves have difficulty boiling a full 5 gallons. Being that it's after thanksgiving, you might have some luck in buying a turkey frying kit on sale at your local home depot or lowe's. It's by far the most economical way to go.

 

[Oddpac87]

Thanks. I was looking into a 7.5 gallon pot, but it looks as though I should go bigger. Going to look into the turkey fryers as well.

 

[budbo]

Thanks. I was looking into a 7.5 gallon pot, but it looks as though I should go bigger. Going to look into the turkey fryers as well.

The turkey fryers usually come with a 30qt pot so you kill 2 birds on that one