Going AG, Do I need to do a full wort boil?

[Vorlauf77]

I was looking for some feedback on need to do a full wort boil in AG brewing.

Up til now I've been doing partial mash brewing. My 20qt/5gal brew pot has been fine. I'm taking the plunge into AG and was wondering if a full 5 gal wort boil is essential. Can I do my mash adding enough sparge water to get to 4gal for my wort boil and top off in my fermenter when done to make 5gal?

I ask because I see 10gal batches in my future but don't have the $$ to make the jump right now and it's cold in Chicago and brewing outside isn't an option. I really don't want to buy a 32qt brew pot and kick it to the curb in a few months when I go with a 10gal setup.

Thanks for your thoughts

 

[hopsalot]

theoretically makes sense, you just need to boil very high gravity low volume batches of wort. Not really sure about this though. Maybe someone else has done it, I think you should invest in another kettle

 

[SenorWanderer]

as long as you boil everything that comes out of your MLT you're good

 

[Bobby_M]

Your brewhouse efficiency will be extremely low and pretty much negate any savings you would have had by using all grain.

 

[jjp36]

If you can't do a full boil, you will need to adjust the recipe by adding more grain so that you will still hit your OG once you add the top off water.

You could always just do smaller batches if you want to do all grain. Instead of 5 gallons just do a 3 or 3.5 gallon batch for now until you upgrade your setup.

 

[VTBrewer]

If you can't do a full boil, you will need to adjust the recipe by adding more grain so that you will still hit your OG once you add the top off water.

You could always just do smaller batches if you want to do all grain. Instead of 5 gallons just to a 3 or 3.5 gallon batch for now until you upgrade your setup.

+1 on 3 gallon batch. If you can only boil 4 gallons, by the end of boil you're going to be adding 2 gallons to get to 5 which will kill your efficiency.

 

[Bobby_M]

You can also figure on 3gallons of grain based wort and make up the remaining two gallons with extract. Just as an example, if you were brewing a 1.045 OG batch, it would mean adding 2 pounds of DME at the end of your boil and topping up with 2 gallons in the fermenter.