water volume

[dave althouse]

Still have question even after 8 batches. Next brew is a Goose Island 321, (extract)boil volume calls for 6.25 gallons with 5 gallons to go in the fermenter. I can probably do a 4 gallon boil ( normally do 3.5 gallons so I don't boil over)due to the size of my kettle. I have done a boil off calculation and know how much I will lose ( 1.5 gallon max depending on hops and additions). So if I start with 3.5 and add water in the fermenter to bring the volume up to 5 gallons what affect does that have on the overall brew ? What will be different between a 6.25g boil, with no need to top off with additional water, or the 3.5g boil needing to add 2-2.5g to top off to 5 gallons? I know the simple solution would be to buy a 8 gallon kettle and not worry about it, but I have to use what I have, plus I need to know the affect with different water volumes

thanks too all in advance


dave althouse

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

make sure your water is ro water or distilled and it won't matter. all your doing is re-hydrating the mash thats been dehydrated for packaging and already set for your beer style, just stir it up very well

 

[Foster82]

With the partial boil you will be fine. The biggest thing with a partial boil is that the wort is more concentrated, which in turns leads lower hop utilization. Additionally chances for caramelizing some of the sugars does go up. Do the biggest boil size that you can manage, and I am sure your brew will be fine.