Hi. The Norther Brewery recipes all instruct a partial boil (the ones I have done anyway). This was fine for me since I only had a 7 gallon pot. I’ve just gotten a 15 gallon brew pot, though, and was wondering if there would be an issue with doing a full boil with these recipes. Thanks for any advice.
The only issue would be hop utilization. With full boils you get better utilization which could result in a more bitter beer. Some recipes this might be noticeable and others not so much. If you have brewing software you can readjust this.
You do have a wort chiller right?
Absolutely good to go on a 5.5 gal boil (evaporation loss). Question is why a 15 gal pot?
Hi, and thanks for the responses. Yes, I do have a wort chiller, and I plan on moving to a pump and plate chiller. Basically, stepping stones to some day moving to all grain brewing (just can’t afford the time right now). And I went with the 15 gallon brew pot because I’d like to do an occasional 10 gallon batch. I don’t have brewing software yet, as I was doing strictly the recipes (i.e., already calculated), but am looking at BeerSmith. Thanks!
15gal pot was a good idea. I started with partial boil in a 5 gal. Quickly moved to a 7.5gal pot / turkey frier setup. Then to a 10gal pot. Wish I would have just started with a 15gal pot.
And yes, full boils with those kits is fine. Actually it’s better. Yes, you may need to tweak your hop amounts, but all you have to do is enter the current recipe into a calculator, write down the IBU, scale it up to full volume boil, and scale back the hops to match the original IBU. It sounds more complicated than it is.
Sounds good. Can’t wait to do my first full boil batch (a German Alt), then a 10 gal batch of IPA. Thanks!
Now that I think about it, that pot would be perfect for BIAB beers
In, general, if using pellet hops in full boil versus partial, I think its recommended to reduce hopping rates by 15% but its totally up to you…Tank :cheers:
I just did my first full boil extract recipe a few days ago. I used an IBU calculator to adjust the hop schedule, and it took right at 10% fewer hops to get the IBUs right, at least on paper. I’ll also say that the color came out the best of all the extract batches I’ve brewed. This one is my first lager (actually a pilsner) and the color looks perfect so far.
NB told me to use the hop amount from the all grain recipe when doing an extract full boil.
