Quick Question for First Batch

[corypedia]

For my first brew, the instructions say:

Begin by heating 2.5 gallons of water in your Brew Pot to 150* and add grains...then malt later...then hops...rolling boil for 60 minutes...then cool to 70*...then add water until it is 5 gallons.

Question: Can I just start with 5 gallons of water to begin with? I have a 15 gallon kettle so i'm not worried about boilover. I figured this way all the water would at least be boiled and get rid of any of the stuff i don't want in regular tap water.

Is this okay to do it this way? or should i just stick with the directions and do 2.5 gallons?

FULL INSTRUCTIONS HERE:
http://www.homebrewing.org/assets/images/AIH 2013 Recipes/AIH Peanut Butter Conspiracy1.pdf

 

[C-Rider]

For my first brew, the instructions say:

Begin by heating 2.5 gallons of water in your Brew Pot to 150* and add grains...then malt later...then hops...rolling boil for 60 minutes...then cool to 70*...then add water until it is 5 gallons.

Question: Can I just start with 5 gallons of water to begin with? I have a 15 gallon kettle so i'm not worried about boilover. I figured this way all the water would at least be boiled and get rid of any of the stuff i don't want in regular tap water.

Is this okay to do it this way? or should i just stick with the directions and do 2.5 gallons?

FULL INSTRUCTIONS HERE:
http://www.homebrewing.org/assets/images/AIH 2013 Recipes/AIH Peanut Butter Conspiracy1.pdf

Yup. By "malt later" I guess it's liquid malt and should be added late in the boil. Hops go into the boil at specific times. Bittering at beginning (at 60 min) Flavor and aroma later llike 15, 10, 5, 0 min left depending or recipe.

 

[Kent88]

with a thinner boil you may get more hop utilization than what that recipe was designed to give. Not sure how that all works myself.

I'm paranoid about contaminating stuff too, but I think I'd just have a pot of boiled, cooled water on hand to top off the fermenter. IMHO there probably isn't anything wrong with boiling down 5.75 or 6 gallons, though. Just make sure you have that wort chiller &/or 50lbs of ice and a sink large enough for the kettle.

I like the overuse of quotation marks in the instructions

 

[corypedia]

I went with the "full boil". We'll see how well it works out.

On a side note, my yeast says to ferment at 70-75*, whereas the beer directions say 64-72*. Which should i go with?

 

[EcuPirate07]

You always want to lean towards the lower end of the temps. Stay in the mid to high 60's if you can also if you have a stick on temperature reader that you put on the fermintation bucket, whatever it reads the beer inside will probably be 3-5 degrees warmer due to yeast generating heat. So if it says your temp is 67 it's probably more like 70 just a heads up incase you didn't know

And try to keep the temperature the same as much as possible. less temp swings means the less likely you will stress out the yeast and developed off flavor's

 

[corypedia]

You always want to lean towards the lower end of the temps. Stay in the mid to high 60's if you can also if you have a stick on temperature reader that you put on the fermintation bucket, whatever it reads the beer inside will probably be 3-5 degrees warmer due to yeast generating heat. So if it says your temp is 67 it's probably more like 70 just a heads up incase you didn't know

And try to keep the temperature the same as much as possible. less temp swings means the less likely you will stress out the yeast and developed off flavor's

currently i'm running a fermentation chamber from an old freezer setup using brewpi. had the temp set at 72.5* for the last hour but will drop it to 68* which is the middle of the recommended beer instructions.

Thanks.