Full(er) Volume Boil

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user 103238

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Friday morning I will be brewing up a Phat Tyre extract kit. Wednesday night I will work up a starter. While I would like to do a full volume boil, I don't have a kettle that will hold 8 gallons. Rather than boiling the recommended 2.5 gallons of water, is there any risk to splitting the difference and boiling 4 gallons instead, still topping off with enough water at the end to complete a 5 gallon batch?
 
You will get an increase in hop utilization but I would not think enough to really perceive (seems to be some debate about this lately). Diluting with a lot less water could change the dilution of the IBU's in the final volume though. I would boil as much as you can, but you may want to plug into a calculator with your actual boil volume to make sure you're in the right IBU range. You may have to go down on the bittering hops a little.
 
I did a lot of fat tire extract kits before getting into all grain. The best thing I did back hen was increase to a 4 gallon boil. You can reduce your bittering hops about 5% or just go with the recipe. If I remember correctly it was 10% reduction if boiling 6 gallons. Bigger boils are great.
 
Thanks Chicky and Okie, appreciate the feedback. I'd like to squeak out a little more during the boil if it won't throw the results off too much.
 
It was very gratifying to be able to drink my Slobber tonight while I was making my starter, in preparation for my next brew. I'm thinking I officially like my new hobby!
 
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