Extract Kit Boil Volume Question

[robertpreed]

I have an Irish Blonde Ale that is in secondary fermentation and despite some misgivings on brew day, seems to be doing well.  In the kit, it has me boil 2.5 gallons of water and use cold water to fill up fermenter to 5 gallons.  I had a brain fart and only boiled with 2 gallons, so the brew is more of a red head than a blonde, but I do not think that will alter the flavor greatly in a negative way.  Hey, it is my first brew after a 10 year layoff due to moving to Houston.

Anyway, I was wondering if I boiled more volume (say 4/5 gallons) would that be a good thing, neutral thing, or bad thing for my next extract kit from Northern Brewer?

Thanks.

[tschmidlin]

Boiling as much of your batch as possible is usually a good idea for bitterness extraction efficiency and to minimize wort darkening, but I’ve heard some of the kits are formulated with a partial boil in mind.  I’m not sure about the NB kits, maybe someone else knows.

[a10t2]

The NB kits do assume a partial boil. If you have the capability to do a full boil, go for it. Just reduce the bittering addition by about 1/3 to keep the IBU about where the recipe intends. You could also do a partial boil but only add half the extract at the beginning of the boil, and the rest at the end. In that case you’d still want to reduce the bittering charge.

In truth, though, it’s going to be difficult to brew a blonde-colored beer using extract, no matter what you do.

[morticaixavier]

@a10t2

The NB kits do assume a partial boil. If you have the capability to do a full boil, go for it. Just reduce the bittering addition by about 1/3 to keep the IBU about where the recipe intends. You could also do a partial boil but only add half the extract at the beginning of the boil, and the rest at the end. In that case you’d still want to reduce the bittering charge.

In truth, though, it’s going to be difficult to brew a blonde-colored beer using extract, no matter what you do.

What if you boiled just water, any specialty grain tea and hops for say 30-45 minutes then added extract only for the last 15-30. That should significantly reduce coloring shouldn’t it?

[denny]

@morticaixavier

What if you boiled just water, any specialty grain tea and hops for say 30-45 minutes then added extract only for the last 15-30. That should significantly reduce coloring shouldn’t it?

That’s kinda the way NB has you do it.  In the kit for the extract version of my rye IPA they have you steep the grains, then add 1/3 of the extract.  Hops to schedule and the other 2/3 of the extract 15 min. from the end of boil.

[robertpreed]

@denny

@morticaixavier

What if you boiled just water, any specialty grain tea and hops for say 30-45 minutes then added extract only for the last 15-30. That should significantly reduce coloring shouldn’t it?

That’s kinda the way NB has you do it.  In the kit for the extract version of my rye IPA they have you steep the grains, then add 1/3 of the extract.  Hops to schedule and the other 2/3 of the extract 15 min. from the end of boil.

Yeah, a lot of the kits has partial boils for the extract.  The irish blonde did not and I was wondering how a brown preboil wort was going to make a blonde beer.  That did not add up to me, but hey, blonde/red… I like them both.    Wait, we are still talking about the beers, right?

I did not know that if I boiled more volume, I would need to decrease the hops to keep the finished product in the same IBU range.  That’s interesting.