Doing A 5 Gal Boil Extract Recipe in a 6 Gal Pot?

[Montanaandy]

I plan on brewing an extract based IPA recipe tomorrow and like most of the extract brews that I have done it calls for a boil size of less than 5 gal which was fine when I used a 3 gal SS pot. I plan on using a 6 gal aluminum pot to do my boil tomorrow so could I put 5.5 gal of water in the aluminum pot (allowing .5 gal for boil down) and perform all of the other actions that I normally do separately (i.e. seeping in a separate pot, boiling 3 gallons of wort in the 3 gal pot, adding 2 gal of water to the primary prior to pouring in the wort) in the 6 gal aluminum pot? Thanks, Montanaandy

 

[Rushis]

Of course, you just have to cool down 5 gal of wort at the end.

 

[Montanaandy]

That's what I thought but I just wanted to check to make certain. Thanks, Montanaandy

 

[Myke_J]

So you are trying to do a full 5 gallon boil in a 6 gallon pot? I've been doing 6 gallon boils in a 7.5 gal pot and am constantly fighting boilover for the first 20-30 mins. I wouldn't think you could get 5.5 gallons to boil in a 6 gal pot without boiling over big time.

 

[skydvr74]

You will also have better hop utilization so your IBUs will be higher than what the recipie predicts.

 

[Marko73]

+1 skydvr. You will need to adjust your bittering hop additions if doing a full boil. There are some good beer calculators that do this for you. I use beersmith and it adjusts your hop amounts based on your boil amount and boil time.

I have found a neat trick to avoid boilovers. When your pot starts to boil up and about to boil over, lift it off the burner for a few seconds. Do this five times in a row, and a nice rolling boil happens without the foam up. Just be careful though, your pot with 5 1/2 gallon in it will probably weight about 50 lbs.

 

[Montanaandy]

Thanks guys for the heads up on the hops, and tips. I decided to go with a 4.5 gal boil and to add 1 gal of cold water to the carboy. The full boil amount (5.5 gal allowing for .5 gal boil off) was too high up in the pot for my comfort level. I should get my 15 gal Polar kettle this week and then this will not be an issue. Thanks again, Montanaandy