Question about Boiling wort

[deadguyry]

If a recipe calls for 4 gallons of water for the wort to be boiled in what happens when you only boil the wort in 2 gallons of water then add the rest in to the carboy?

 

[Dogphish]

that will mess up the IBU's in the recipe (the amount of hop bitterness). since your wort will be more saturated with concentrated barley sugars, the hops will not be able to absorb as much.

you risk making sweeter beer than the recipe intended.

 

[theredben]

Your hops will be a little bit weaker. And your beer may end up a little bit darker. That is it. Stove-top brewing?

EDIT: Seeing what Dogphish posted, I should clarify that it is not a huge difference in hop bitterness.

 

[C-Rider]

that will mess up the IBU's in the recipe (the amount of hop bitterness). since your wort will be more saturated with concentrated barley sugars, the hops will not be able to absorb as much.

you risk making sweeter beer than the recipe intended.

That kind of asnwers what I was gonna ask next

My recipe called for 2-3 gallons to boil and I used 1 3/4 afraid of boil over. I think next time I'll try 2 gallons. My "green" sample did taste a bit on the sweet side, but it's only 3 days old.

 

[DregAddict]

Lots of people top off with water to reach the desired batch size. You might want to get a little larger pot, maybe one that would allow you to boil ~3 gallons. But don't worry about topping off hurting your beer. Keep in mind the top off water and the cooled wort will be at different temps and thus won't mix too well at first. This can cause some inaccurate hydrometer readings. But during the fermentation process everything will blend evenly.

 

[deadguyry]

Yea im top stove brewing its odd because all of my beers so far seem a little too bitter and im new to this so i don know what it could be.

 

[deadguyry]

And thanks so much for all of the quick replies I really appreciate it