Top-up question with a twist

[abweatherley]

Hey HBT happy holidays to y'ou all first of all will be brewing the weekend after TG.

So I haven't seen any threads on this so I have a question.

I do partial boils in a three gallon pot. So I boil about 2.5 GAL of water add my extract and boil for 60 min, So I want to know after evaporation, can I add more water to the kettle boil it to sanitize the now increased volume. Or am I going to throw my OG off. I use extract so I don't see a problem and I'd only be adding enough water to recover evaporation loss.

 

[Shooter]

You'll be fine, you're going to top off to a full five gallons later anyway.

 

[arg]

I'm confused. You boil 2.5 gallons in a 3 gallon pot. Do you top up in the fermenting vessel to 5 gallons or only 3?

If you want to boil the finished volume (2.5 gal) you'll be fine. If you want to bring back to original volume and then top off again to 5 gal without boiling, I'm not sure why you would want to...

 

[abweatherley]

yeah I top up the ferementer to 5 G's I guess I'm trying to play around with adding less of not 'worty' liquid to the fermenter. Maybe to improve flavor!

 

[unionrdr]

Just boil as much as your pot can handle with a little head space for hot break. I've had one pound of plain wheat DME give the same hot break as it did with 1/2lb of carapils in 2.5-3 gallons of water. So you need a little head space sometimes. I use a 5 gallon ss stock pot & can easily handle hot break on a 3G boil.

 

[29thfloor]

If you want to improve the flavor, boiling the full volume and then cooling with a wort chiller will do a lot more than this. I'm not sure it's even going to make a difference if you partially top off in the kettle and then finish topping off in the fermentor. No matter how you do it you're gonna end up with the same ratio of water to fermentable sugars. I guess it might cool the wort down faster, so it probably won't hurt, but I don't think you'll notice a big difference.

 

[Shooter]

If you want to improve the flavor, boiling the full volume and then cooling with a wort chiller will do a lot more than this. I'm not sure it's even going to make a difference if you partially top off in the kettle and then finish topping off in the fermentor. No matter how you do it you're gonna end up with the same ratio of water to fermentable sugars. I guess it might cool the wort down faster, so it probably won't hurt, but I don't think you'll notice a big difference.

Yeah, I agree, the general principle is probably sound, but adding another half gallon in the pot, instead of in the fermenter, probably doesn't change the end result too much.

 

[Calder]

Hpld back half the extract until about 15 minutes to go. That will replace the volume of liquid you boiled off.

I would not add a lot of cold water to a boiling pot. I know everyone says it doesn't exist, but I would be concerned about the possibility of HSA from the oxygen naturally entrained in the water. I would always be wondering if it had a effect on the finished product.