Full boil- for stouts

[CBecksOSU1]

On this board I hear a lot about the benefits of a full boil. Specially for the purpose of hop utilization. If brewing a stout or any hop light beer is there any advantage to a full boil?

The reason I ask it it's much easier and quicker to bring wort to pitch temperature when adding to chilled water and topping off. Thoughts?

 

[ncbrewer]

I like to do a partial boil with late extract addition. That way you get the benefits of a more diluted boil, but still use top-off, with its advantages in chilling. It also eliminates or greatly reduces maillard reactions (probably not an issue with a stout). There's some debate over the last few years about whether boil gravity really affects hop utilization - I think the jury is still out on that. I consistently use my partial boil/late extract addition method to eliminate this as a variable.