brew 5g batch vs smaller batch and add water?

[heckofagator]

Hi all,

I've been reading, trying to get everything down, and even took a class at the local home brew shop this past weekend.

They brewed about 2.5g and then we added cool water to make up the 5 g. This made sense to me as it seemed easier to transport and adding cool water helped cool the wort. But now I'm seeing a lot of people like to boil the whole 5g (or whatever size you are making) batch at one time.

Can you tell me the differences between these two methods? Pros and Cons?

 

[tacks]

What you're talking about is full vs partial boil. I'm not exactly sure why some people do the partial boil other than the convenience of just adding top up water to get to the full 5 gallons. The advantage of a full boil is having better hop utilization. When you have a higher concentrated wort (2.5 gallon boil at say a gravity 1.100 that will dilute down to 1.050 with 2.5 gallons of top up water) is more dense, making it harder to allow the acids that give beer its hop flavor and bitterness to be absorbed during the boil. This makes it also more inaccurate when calculating hops weight to be added to get the desired IBU for your style.

 

[ryansanders]

Hi and welcome to the hobby! The only real style of brewing that you NEED to do a full 5gal boil is All Grain brewing. This is important because the ratio of grain to water needs to be such that you can extract enough fermentable sugar from the grain, so boiling less water when doing All Grain brews will result in lower efficiencies and recipes not turning out.

Now if you are doing extract or partial mash brewing, feel free to boil 2.5gal and top off with water. Since much of your fermentable sugars are added in the form of extract, and doesn't need to be extracted from the grain, you don't need a full boil. If you are going to go with this route, try out this technique: Pre-boil your extra top-off water, cool it down and stick it in the freezer in sanitized containers. When you go to top off your boil, you can use the sanitized water to not only reach your final level of liquid, but it will also help you cool your wort down quicker - which is also important

 

[ryansanders]

I'm not exactly sure why some people do the partial boil other than the convenience of just adding top up water to get to the full 5 gallons.

I think the major reason is actually gear constraints. Folks who dont have 8gal kettles, don't have the heat source to reach a full boil on 5 gallons of liquid, etc. It might be more convenient, but its mostly about the gear

 

[heckofagator]

thanks guys. Now I know the terms I'm looking for, and it seems like there's plenty of discussion on this topic.

I was shopping for a brew kettle and was conflicted on which size to get, as it seems you can get by with the smaller one sold at the local place with a partial boil. But I'm def off to do some more reading before purchasing a kettle.

But adding cool water to the hot wort sure did seem like it made sense.

 

[tacks]

thanks guys. Now I know the terms I'm looking for, and it seems like there's plenty of discussion on this topic.

I was shopping for a brew kettle and was conflicted on which size to get, as it seems you can get by with the smaller one sold at the local place with a partial boil. But I'm def off to do some more reading before purchasing a kettle.

But adding cool water to the hot wort sure did seem like it made sense.

I know that many people will argue about kettle material with stainless being the best, but I know many people including myself use aluminum kettles. You'll just have to decide what's right for you. Aluminum is lighter and cheaper but requires a hard boil to form a layer of aluminum oxide so that the aluminum does not leach into your wort when boiling. There is tons of info out there. Good luck in your future brewing, your resources here are almost unlimited.

 

[ChelisHubby]

In General a full boil is better. The full boil will require a turkey fryer burner to go with the 8 gallon pot. How much equipment do you have and what is your budget. While you are researching the hobby look into Swamp coolers as it is a cheap way to maintain the proper fermentation tempature , and that will keep most of the off flavors from developing. Welcome to the hobby.

 

[heckofagator]

I don't have anything yet. Will probably just buy a kit and start adding from there. Well, I take that back. We do have a $50 Bayou Classic propane burner and a 82-qt Bayou Classic SS Pot. I bought it to do shrimp boils. not sure the wife would want me to use that for beer, and its really big anyways, so hence shopping for the kettle pot and other stuff.

For fermentation, I thought I might try the Son of Fermentation, or maybe even the Cool Brewing fermentation bag. Part of me wants to start off cheap and learn the ropes, but the other part of me wants to buy nice from the get-go, within reason. We just don't have the room for a chest freezer and temp controller yet. At least not one we can fill full of groceries.