Prehopped extract boil question.

[JebCkr]

The recipee calls for a 15min boil in 2 gals of water. I have a 3 gal pot and don't really want to get another one tonight. Will it hurt anything if I use less than 2 gallons of water? How much less could I get away with? Will this create any discernible taste differance? Thanks in advance!:fro:

 

[FlyingHorse]

With prehopped extract, the only issue I can think of is the possibility of scorching due to the higher sugar concentration. (if you were adding hops, then utilization would be a concern with the higher-gravity, lower-volume boil).

As long as you heat gently and stir-stir-stir, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[brian_g]

The instructions say to boil it? I thought pre-hopped kits and no boil kits were the same thing. Is there steeping grains or are you basically just adding hot water? My wife and I have made kits from Muntons and Coopers. I'll tell you how we do it and you can decide if that will work for your kit.

We use the Muntons or Coopers can, and then get an additional can of unhopped malt extract. We put the cans in warm water in the sink to soften up the extract. We boil water in a tea kettle. We then open both cans and dump them into the fermentor. We then use the water from the tea kettle to rinse out the cans. We try to get the cans as clean as possible, sometimes it takes more then one tea kettle full. We use a long spoon to mix the extract with the hot water, and then top off with cold water. Aerate. Pitch yeast.

Using only a small amount of hot water makes it easier to get to pitching temp. Usually by the time we top off we're just at the correct temp. for an ale.

There's no need to boil the extract for sanitation purposes. It's already been boiled. If there was anything living in it the can would start expanding. You do need to sanitize everything else.