Wort Evaporation

[Triggs1980]

Hi Guys

Sorry to make another newbie post, but I am following a recipe that's missing some key information and I could do with some guidance.

I'm making a braggot! The guidance is to make a wort in a container that can hold 1.5 gallons of fluid however, after steeping my mash the solution requires a 1 hour boil. when I look elsewhere a number of places indicate that within an hour of boiling you can lose between 1-1.5 gallons of liquid through evaporation, so either my initial water content is wrong, or I need to add more water during the boil, or I'm not boiling (it's a lower than 100 degrees centigrade temperature) or my wort is supposed to be really small?

Please see from 4mins 10sec and then 6mins 55sec in the following link to understand my confusion:



I'm clearly missing something here, please can someone advise?

Thanks in advance

Allen

 

[DBhomebrew]

The 1-1.5 gallon boil off refers to the typical vigorous boil that is common with 5gal batches in a 10-15gal kettle. There is no need to boil vigorously, a simmer is all you need. In my 5gal I usually boil off ~.2gal/hr.

 

[RM-MN]

after steeping my mash the solution requires a 1 hour boil

Why? Just because that one hour boil is conventional wisdom does not make it right. What do you intend to achieve with the one hour boil? Hop bittering? 90% of that happens in the first half hour. Do you need the maximum bittering from your hops? Reduction of wort liquid? Not that much. I simply bring my wort to a boil, turn down the heat so it will return to a slow simmer, add hops and let it simmer (slow rolling boil?) for the 30 minutes.

 

[Triggs1980]

Why? Just because that one hour boil is conventional wisdom does not make it right. What do you intend to achieve with the one hour boil? Hop bittering? 90% of that happens in the first half hour. Do you need the maximum bittering from your hops? Reduction of wort liquid? Not that much. I simply bring my wort to a boil, turn down the heat so it will return to a slow simmer, add hops and let it simmer (slow rolling boil?) for the 30 minutes.

Thanks for this, that makes more sense, especially as I'm only really using hops for flavour and aroma, so was only planning to introduce during the last 15 minutes. I'm aiming to make something sweet and sour, so bittering isn't massively essential in my head.

 

[Triggs1980]

The 1-1.5 gallon boil off refers to the typical vigorous boil that is common with 5gal batches in a 10-15gal kettle. There is no need to boil vigorously, a simmer is all you need. In my 5gal I usually boil off ~.2gal/hr.

Appreciate the insight, I shall simmer

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for this, that makes more sense, especially as I'm only really using hops for flavour and aroma, so was only planning to introduce during the last 15 minutes. I'm aiming to make something sweet and sour, so bittering isn't massively essential in my head.

You still may need to boil for the half hour even if you are only adding the hops in the last 15 minutes to boil off some of the DMS.