Water amount in wort boil

[pclarks]

Hey, everyone. Just brewed my second batch today and had a question. The first batch I did was a brewers best kit and it gave an amount of water to use with the boil however it stated that you could add up to 5 gallons if you had the room. The second batch I did was a clone recipe and it called for very specific amounts of water which ended up making it a 2.5 gallon boil or so. Ran into a bit of difficulty and came to the conclusion that it wouldn't have hurt as much if I had a bigger boil. Does the boil amount matter as long as you don't exceed the 5 gallon total for the recipe?

 

[TungstenBeer]

To keep it simple... I'll just say that if you can boil (and have the means to properly chill) a full volume (ie 5 gallon) batch, you should.

 

[Shred]

A full boil is always preferred if you have the means. 2 primary reason are you get better utilization of your hops and you have less caramelization of your extracts (better color control).

 

[pclarks]

Thanks guys.

 

[Trox]

One thing to keep in mind is that if a kit is set for a certain amount of water at boil your OG and FG might be a bit off if you do a full boil instead.

 

[pclarks]

Is there a way to figure out what the SG should be when making it a full boil?

 

[Trox]

I know Beersmith can take it into account, but not sure if there are others that can.

 

[Shred]

Your OG and FG will not be impacted by boil size so long as you you have the correct final volume after boil-off and/or top off. One of the advantages of extract is that it's highly predictable.

 

[unionrdr]

I still do partial boil with my partial mash biab beers in the same 5 gallon SS BK/MT. but I increased the PB to 3.5-3.75 gallons. I've even done 4 gallon boils a couple times. but 3.5-3.75 is quite managable in a 5 gallon kettle. Just don't walk away to do something else till after the hot break/bittering addition.

 

[Yooper]

Is there a way to figure out what the SG should be when making it a full boil?

It should be exactly the same, whether you boil 2.5 gallons or all 5 gallons. Sugars are sugars, and don't disappear. If the volume at the end is 5 gallons, then the SG will be the same.