Pointless to go A-G?

[aidan]

I think the benefits of a full boil will outweigh the benefits of going AG.

It's not pointless to go to AG if you can't do a full boil, but you'll always be handicapping your brews by doing a partial boil.

Can someone elaborate to me (a partial boil brewer) the benefits of a full boil/handicaps of a partial boil?

 

[Bob]

You can totally do this, but the difficulty is with figuring out how to mash/sparge so that you end up with a sufficiently high gravity yet still keep your volumes to what you can manage.

Not really difficult at all. With software it's easy.

Can someone elaborate to me (a partial boil brewer) the benefits of a full boil/handicaps of a partial boil?

There are many. Here are those I can remember at 0700 before coffee:

1. Concentrated boil (where all fermentables are boiled in a volume smaller than final brew length) reduces hops utilization. That means more hops for a desired level of bitterness than in a full boil.

2. Concentrated boil promotes Maillard reactions which contribute to wort darkening. Truth be told, that's more of a function of extract use, but still it has an effect.

3. Full boil means different volumes, as some of your precious wort will boil off. You must start the boil with 10-20% more wort than your desired brew length. That may present an equipment issue.

I'm another proponent of smaller batches. My equipment is mostly stuff from my partial-boil days. My largest kettle is 5 gallons total, which means I can boil 3.75-4 gallons, tops. So I make 3-gallon batches of all-grain beer or partial-mash 5-gallon batches.

I'm also one of those dinosaurs who does a lot of racking, so I do the primary ferment in buckets and rack to smaller carboys (for fining or flavor additions). If you do plan to go small-batch all-grain and are used to longer primary ferments in carboys, by all means purchase smaller carboys. Better Bottles come in all sorts of volumes.

Hope this is helpful!

Bob

 

[aidan]

There are many. Here are those I can remember at 0700 before coffee:

1. Concentrated boil (where all fermentables are boiled in a volume smaller than final brew length) reduces hops utilization. That means more hops for a desired level of bitterness than in a full boil.

2. Concentrated boil promotes Maillard reactions which contribute to wort darkening. Truth be told, that's more of a function of extract use, but still it has an effect.

3. Full boil means different volumes, as some of your precious wort will boil off. You must start the boil with 10-20% more wort than your desired brew length. That may present an equipment issue.

I eliminate these issues by the late extract method. I actually boil my extract in a seperate pot for 10-15 mins. If I'm doing partial mash, no extract goes in the main boil. If I'm doing extract + steeped grain, I add only enough extract to bring the BG to approximately the level it would be at if I was doing full boil. Given that, would you expect any negative impact on the beer I make compared to if I was doing full boil?

 

[Bob]

No negative impact at all. In fact, your partial mash procedure is remarkably similar to mine: I essentially brew a small all-grain batch, add DME at flameout, and top up in the fermenter.

Cheers!

Bob