Question about brewing with extract???

[jpm5171988]

I have a question about brewing a 5 gallon batch of beer using malt extract (and a bag of grain). Every book that I've read so far has intructed me to brew a 3 gallong batch of wort, and then add water to the fermenter to bring the total volume to 5 gallons. I have a 30 quart pot, which would allow me to do a full 5 gallon boil.

Are there any reasons why I should only brew 3 gallons of wort? Advantages/disadvantages?
Would it be better to do the full boil? If so, at what point after steeping should I bring the total volume up to 5 gallons?
Any information would be appreciated.

 

[TipsyDragon]

your pot may not be big enough to do a full boil. yes it can hold 5+ gallons of wort but you have to remember the hot break. there is quite a bit of foam produced during a break. true there are ways of dealing with it. i would suggest doing research on that.

if your going to do a full boil make sure the recipe is a full boil recipe. if not the IBUs will be off. again research how to convert one to the other.

you should bring it up to a full 5 gallons after steeping and adding the extract. remember the extract takes up space.

 

[munche]

My understanding is that typically if you're boiling the full 5 gallons it will be harder to chill using the ice bath method, most people then step up to a wort chiller.

Also some stoves can have trouble bringing 5 gallons to a boil.

 

[JonK331]

I agree with munche, if you don't have a wort chiller. Keep the boil size down. If you do have a chiller go for the full boil. A chiller is an important part of a good brew setup so if you don't have one, you might think about buying / making one. I used to use a chiller with partial boils and it works great. Full boils usually lead to less caramelization, which for most styles, is a good thing. You will also get better hop utilization as jpm stated but it won't make a huge difference.

 

[ThirdGen]

Without a wort chiller I'd hate to do a full 5 gallons. I did 3.5 for my first brew and it took ~40 minutes to chill in my sink (switching from side to side with ice baths).

 

[JJL]

30 quart is fine to do a full boil. You would actually boil about 6 gallons figuring you are going to evaporate 1 gal during the boil. Munche is right about the chiller. You can't really cool that much wort efficiently without a chiller. But these are all just considerations. The only difference is hops utilization. You typically need to use less hops in a larger boil. You need to adjust for this if you are going to move from a 3gal boil to a 5 or 6 gal boil.