Wort Volume/Boil amount

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I’m brewing an American IPA, extract. In the past, I’ve boiled either 2 or 3 gallons, added all my grains, syrup, and hops to that volume amount (2 or 3 gallons), and continued to brew.

I’ve recently read to get the most from your hops and get their full bitterness, you need to do a vigorous, full wort boil (source - Brew your Own Mag). In light of this, I’m thinking this time around of boiling all 5 gallons, and adding my respective ingredients to 5 gallons, rather than the 2 or 3. Yet most recipes call to boil 2 gallons, sometimes even less.

Any advice, tips, suggestions? Thanks.

How much water should I boil?
  • How much water should I boil?
  • Is too much water or too less water better when it comes to the boil?
0 voters
2

With a full boil you’ll probably get about 10% more bitterness from your early addition, late additions should give you similar results to the small volume boil.  Sounds like a good plan, watch for boilovers if your kettle is full.

You’ll lose maybe 1gal/hr of boiling, so you might want to start with 6-6.5gal.