Boil size

[finny13]

I have a question about how much water I should use when I boil. I've done one extract recipe and one mini mash recipe thus far and both have called for about 2.5 gallons of water to boil with my LME, grains and hops. After everything was done and cooled both recipes called to add my wort to 2 1/2 gallons or so to cold water in my fermenter.

I've recently dl'd beersmith and came up with an American brown recipe that I've been told should come out good and am going to brew it next week. Should I just go with what I've done before, and make my wort using 2 1/2 gallons of water and then just add to more cold water in the fermenerr, or do something different? I just don't know enough about brewing if it even makes a difference. If it matters I brew with a 5 gallon stainless steel kettle and if it also makes a difference I can post my recipe.

Thanks

Ryan

 

[Special Hops]

I think generally you should have the biggest boil volume your kettle allows without boil-over.

 

[262andbrew]

Results were mixed in this experiment:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-04-10exp3.mp3

But most people believe that the more water in the boil the better. Ideas are:
a)better hop utilization.
b)less darkening of the wort.
c)less unsterilized water going into the fermenter.

The downsides are:
1)logistics of lifting 40 pounds of boiling liquid.
2)harder to cool if you don't have a wort cooler.
3)less oxygen in the pitched wort which make it harder for the yeasties to get kicked off.

 

[finny13]

So more in the boil then? Im using white labs liquid yeast and am going to make a starter the day before so that downside shouldnt hurt. So should i go like 4 gallons to make sure I dont overboil and that should be okay?

 

[DKershner]

So more in the boil then? Im using white labs liquid yeast and am going to make a starter the day before so that downside shouldnt hurt. So should i go like 4 gallons to make sure I dont overboil and that should be okay?

I would go with 4 gallons in a 5gal pot. Boil down to 3-3.5gal and add 1.5-2gal of water.

And start looking for a cheap, bigger pot.

 

[earwig]

I have read that boiling more water than the recipe calls for could screw up your hop/acid/bitter balance and affect hop utilisation and therefore taste.

 

[nasmeyer]

I have read that boiling more water than the recipe calls for could screw up your hop/acid/bitter balance and affect hop utilisation and therefore taste.

Been there, done that! You will need to re-calculate your bittering hop addition. You will need somewhat less hops than called for.

 

[mdwmonster]

Like others have said, to get the same IBU as the original recipe, you might have to adjust the hop amounts. You should be able to figure this with Beer Smith. If the recipe was a partial boil, you may not see much difference going from 2-1/2 gallons to 3 gallons. However, if the recipe was a full boil, and you are doing a partial boil you may find that you have to add more hops to get the same IBU as the recipe.

If the original recipe is a full boil, you might want to read up on late extract additions. The idea is that you add only enough extract to a partial boil to get roughly the same gravity as the full boil recipe. The theory is (and I can't tell you if it is right or wrong, just that there are a lot of folks with more experience and knowledge than me who believe it) that hop utilization decreases with higher gravity wort. If you can get a partial boil that has about the same gravity as a full boil, you will get about the same hop utilization. Typically, you add about half of the extract at the beginning, the rest at the end - but you should check the math before you do it....

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Changing the boil volume will affect your hops utilization. Beersmith should tell you what the boil volume is -- you should follow what it says to the extent that your equipment will allow you to do so. If it doesn't, then you need to adjust the equipment to whatever size kettle you have and then adjust the amount of hops to get back down to the right IBUs.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Changing any ONE thing (boil size, etc.) in a recipe will affect things. However, often something else can often be modified to get a similar outcome.

For example, reducing boil size would decrease IBUs, but shifting some of the extract to post-boil would increase the IBUs. For average beers, IBUs are affected by the boil density, not boil size itself (boil size itself does put an upper-limit on IBUs, however).

 

[Frank99]

On a side note:
1) Use anti foam -It works!
2) Once I get to a rapid, roiling boil I lower my burner to medium heat and it remains at a rapid boil throughout. Depending on your equipment you may want to experiment with this if you've filled close to the top of the kettle.