Lehigh Valley Homebrewers

[Kevin]

Looking for opinions... I've been doing partial, extract/steeped grain, boils for about a year now and am looking to make some improvements to my brew. Would going to a full wort boil buy me anything in terms of improved quality? I'm thinking of doing that as an intermediate step in moving towards all grain. I'm not unhappy with the beer that I've made but there's always room for improvement.

[kkwant]

Bringing your wort up to full boil volumes will improve a few facets of your homebrew, most notably in terms of the efficiency of your Alpha Acid extraction. In concentrated volume brewing, the gravity is higher than "normal". This creates an issue with the solubility of the acids and other compounds found in hops that impart pleasant bitterness in your finished beer. Additionally there are other reactions present during the boil that can be affected by the volume of your wort. Malliard reactions are what create color and flavors in darker beers due to the combination of various compounds and molecules in your wort. There is plenty to be found about this and other things on this forum as well as in literature and brewing websites. Moving to full boils will also help move you toward all-grain brewing which will do much more for the quality of your beer.

Cheers!
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[rpiano]

Going to all grain will not necessarily improve your beers, it will give you more control of how they will taste. It allows you to tweak the grain bill rather than accepting what the extract manufacturer gives you as a base. Steeping or partial mashing is not as effective as all grain mashing/sparge process, so it will be more efficient to impart the flavors/sugars you want.

Sorry slightly off topic.
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Bob Piano

[JoshBushey]

Agree with Bob, but definetly go full boil. After filtering my water, the best thing I've donefor my beer.
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I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.

[mmanning]

No doubt this is a good idea. It will help you produce lighter colored beers as well if you so choose to do.

If you are brewing pre-assembled ingredient kits, you'll want to reduce the bittering hops called for in the recipe to compensate for the increased utilization factor. Your flavor and aroma hops can stay the same. It has been a while since I boiled anything less than a full wort, so I don't remember by how much you should reduce, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere.

[Kevin]

Thanks to all for the input. Sounds like something I'm going to do. One more question. How big of a brew kettle do I need to do 5+ gallons. From what I've read online, it looks like 10 gallons is a good size?

[JoshBushey]

I wouldn't buy anything smaller than 10G.
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I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.

[dbarber]

+1

If you are ever thinking about doing 10 gal batches in the future I suggest getting a 15 gal kettle.
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David Barber

[sminnich]

+1
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Scott