Doing a 5 gallon boil instead of 2 1/2

[trainfever]

Since I started brewing(its only been a year), I've been doing partial boils with extract kits. I have since received a turkey fryer and was thinking about boiling 5 gallons with a kit. If I have read correctly, a 5 gallon boil will give me better hopps utilization, am I correct? I figure I will follow the instructions completely except for using 5 gallons of water instead of 2 1/2. Will doing this hurt or help my beer? thanks

 

[talleymonster]

If you do a full boil, you will need a way to cool your wort. It will take forever to cool 5 gallons of boiling beer down to pitching temps with an ice bath. Immersion chiller, plate chiller, Counter flow chiller, etc.

 

[trainfever]

I have an immersion chiller. I plan on cooling the wort with a combination ice bath/immersion chiller. One of my other hobbies is a reef aquarium, because of that, I have plenty of pumps laying around. I plan on putting the pot in a tub of ice water and then pump the ice water through the immersion chiller. I figure this should chill the wort pretty quickly.

 

[GIusedtoBe]

With full boil you'll need to alter your hops by about 1/2 to 3/4 of the called for amount. You'll also need to start with more than 5 gallons to compensate for boil off unless you are planning on topping off the fermenter.

Plug your recipe into the tastybrew.com recipe calculator and it will help you w/ the hop calculations.

Good Luck
Al