I brewed my first all-grain batch a couple days ago and due to almost 7 gallons of wort resulting from the mash/lauter tun, I had to split it up between two pots and boil separately. My question is, does the original gravity of the wort have to be the same in each pot during the boil? Also, does splitting up the hops evenly have any effect as well? I poured both pots together into the primary and seems to be fermenting well. I hope the outcome doesn’t give a different result using this technique.
The OG’s don’t have to be the same but it’s probably preferable. I assume, from the way you’re asking, that you ran off into one pot until full and then switched to running off into the second pot. Next time you’d probably be a little better off switching back and forth between the pots. That way, the two worts will be much more the same. The way you did it, the first pot will have a significantly higher gravity than the second and gravity affects hop utilization. Either way, though, your beer should turn out fine.
Thanks for the input. Next time around I’ll make sure to distribute it evenly for a better hop balance. 