Full Boil Help...

[bigdawg86]

Hey guys, new brewer here. New forum member as well. I have 4 extract brews under my belt so far (3 partial, one full boil) and am learning as much as I can with each batch. I will be brewing the Golden Road "Wolf Among Weeds IPA" extract kit this weekend...

http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/GoldenRoadWolfAmongWeedsIPA.pdf

I want to do a full boil on this very hop heavy IPA, but from my research know that hop utilization can be different with the increased boil size. I didn't change anything with my last full boil because it was a Belgian style with very little hop additions, but this recipe is a different story...TONS of hops! What's confusing to me is I punched in all the ingredients to a brew calculator (don't remember which one) and adjusted to the full volume of this brew (6 gallons to fermentor) and ended up with the same IBU's.

Can someone help me with a sanity check and see if there are any hop adjustments I should make?

 

[Yooper]

Hey guys, new brewer here. New forum member as well. I have 4 extract brews under my belt so far (3 partial, one full boil) and am learning as much as I can with each batch. I will be brewing the Golden Road "Wolf Among Weeds IPA" extract kit this weekend...

http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/GoldenRoadWolfAmongWeedsIPA.pdf

I want to do a full boil on this very hop heavy IPA, but from my research know that hop utilization can be different with the increased boil size. I didn't change anything with my last full boil because it was a Belgian style with very little hop additions, but this recipe is a different story...TONS of hops! What's confusing to me is I punched in all the ingredients to a brew calculator (don't remember which one) and adjusted to the full volume of this brew (6 gallons to fermentor) and ended up with the same IBU's.

Can someone help me with a sanity check and see if there are any hop adjustments I should make?

Yes, there is a difference in IBUs between, say, a 2.5 gallon boil and a full boil, but in a good way. The reason is if you have 2.5 gallons of wort with 80 IBUs, and 2.5 gallons of water to add with 0 IBUs, it means that the max you'd get in your beer would be 40 IBUs. That's ok in lower IBU beers, but in an IPA, you want to always boil as much as you can to ensure enough bitterness in it.

Doing a full boil (without adjustments) is a great way to go.

 

[bigdawg86]

Well I guess that covers it, so interesting how you can search a subject and get wildly different responses... then turns out to be a simple answer.