How do i do a full boil???

[roosbrews]

OK, I know this may sound stupid, but how exactly do you do a full boil?? Ive read through a lot of threads on here discussing full/partial boils but I haven't found one stating how a full boil is really done, so I was wandering if anyone had a short but sweet step by step guide on full boils? Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[solbes]

Guess I may not be fully understanding the question. But if you are doing a 5 gallon batch, you want a 7+ gallon boil kettle. You eventually want to figure out your boil off rate and compensate in the beginning of the boil. I would assume in 60 minutes, you would figure between .5 and 1 gallon of boil off. Factors affecting this are kettle geometry (fatter, shorter kettles boil off more), and the moisture level in the ambient air (cool/dry weather boils off faster).

So you fill your boil kettle to your 6 gallons or so and add half of your extract. Add your 60 minutes hops once it starts boiling, and add the rest of your hops per your schedule. With about 10 minutes to go, add the second half of your extract (this method leads to less carmelizing of your extract, so your color is closer to intended). This is also a good time to add Irish Moss and any yeast nutrients. Then at flameout you want to chill to pitching temps as quickly as possible. Most effective is a wort chiller. The cheaper ones are called immersion chillers, and send cold tap water through a 1/2" x 25' or 50' copper coil immersed into your wort, and out into a drain. You can either pre-sanitize the chiller with Star-San or drop the chiller into the boil for the last 5 minutes or so and then hook up to water once you get to flameout.

 

[amateur_knight]

Since this is the next step for me I'll jump in and answer.

A full boil is simply boiling all of the wort together instead of "topping off" after flameout in the fermenter. There are calculators that can help you estimate how much water boils off during your boil (for me it's about 1 gal per hr).

So a full boil requires your anticipated wort volume plus any boil off minus your additions (like dme lme etc). A heat source as well (I don't think my stove top is adequate anymore)

I'm shooting for a 10 gal pot with a propane burner under it.

Helpful?

 

[NickTheGreat]

I always thought that a "full boil" was literally boiling everything. Not a partial boil and adding water like some extract kits do?

So the answer is a BIG pot and hot burner

 

[Homercidal]

Full boil simply means boiling all of the wort volume at one time, so that when you are done boiling you don't add any top off water.

Now that doesn't mean you can't add some of the extract later in the boil, such as "late extract addition", but that you don't top up with water for volume.

For a 5 gallon batch, you generally need 6.5+ gallons of wort at the start of the boil so that when you are done boiling off some of the water, and if there is anything soaked up in the hops, and when you chill the wort, you end up with the right amount of chilled wort.

 

[roosbrews]

Thank you everyone for your help! One more question...do I still steep my grains for the same amount of time even though I have more water in the kettle?

 

[solbes]

Time should be the same. Honestly I would steep them in a lower volume of water. 1-1.5 gallons at the steeping temps for the same amount of time as before. Then add water, 1/2 your extract, and boil away.

 

[mcbaumannerb]

One thing to keep in mind, if you take an extract recipe that is designed for partial boil and instead do a full boil, your hop utilization will be affected and the bitterness will be off. You need to adjust your hops (again, only if you are taking a recipe designed for partial boil and doing a full boil.)