Boil vigor

[ebaynote]

Hello all-
Basic question here. Recently I didn't boil as vigorously as usual. I know this because I usually boil off about 1 gallon over an hour and this time I boiled off about 3/4 of a gallon. My gravity reading was a little off after I cooled (1.055 shooting for 1.064, but still within style guideline).
Is it always best to boil down to your predetermined post-boil number? Obviously i would have gotten closer to that 1.064 number. But does this mess up the hop schedule? Will I mess up bittering hops and lessen flavor and aroma hops?
Thanks for any clarrification.

 

[Walker]

Yes, if you end up having to boil longer than expected to get to the target volume, that means that the hops you meant to throw in at 60 minutes actually got boiled for longer, so you'll get more bitterness from them. Likewise, a hop addition that was supposed to be done at 5 minutes but ended up getting boiled for 25 minutes is not going to have the same impact on the beer that you wanted.

As a general tip to avoid this kind of thing.... assume low boil off. It's easier to add water at the end of the boil to get to the target volume than it is to remove water to get to the target volume.

I am about to use a new system for the first time this weekend and don't know what kind of boil off I am going to get from it, so I am going to assume a very low number and see what happens.