Full Volume Boiling

that really depends on your stove. I use a banjo propane burner outside to get 7-8 gallons of wort to a boil. I know most stoves would have a hard time getting that much liquid up to boil.

 

You'll avoid that "homebrew" taste and you'll get better hop utilization. This will also help keep all of your wort sanitary.

You can always use multiple pots and multiple elements going until you get up to a boil. Than just consolidate the wort into your main kettle. Most large coil stove burners are able to keep 6+ gal of wort at a simmer or better.

 

You could get it up to a boil, it will just take a long time. I used to do full boils on a stove and when I moved to a propane burner it cut my brew day down by almost 2 hours once you factor in heating strike and sparge water.

 

Agree with what people are saying, had issues on a gas stove getting about 5 gallons heated quickly, leading to what I believe were "bad hot breaks". I didn't necessarily notice any difference in the taste of my beer, although it does affect the appearance. As mentioned, it does add time to the brewing day as well.

I have moved on to the 2-pot boils and combining them later for larger batches, and it's worked fine, as far as I can tell. I am strongly considering a better system for larger batches, though. What would people recommend?

 

No, you can actually split everything evenly between the two kettles for the entire boil time, then combine just before cooling.

 

Is there a reason you couldn't cool before you combine? I would assume 2 2.5 gallon pots would cool twice as fast as one 5 gallon pot. This assumes the OP doesn't have an immersion chiller, based on the fact that they haven't done a full boil before.

To parrot the other posters, my electric stove could boil 5 gallons (I think it took something like 2 hours to bring to a boil) but without the lid on it could barely maintain a simmer. I found it inadequate, and never brewed like this.

 

Sure, you could, assuming you have the facilities to chill both at once.

 

When I use my stove top, I boil the full volume of wort by splitting it into two kettles. I have one 5 gallon and one 7 gallon kettle. Add about 3.5 gallons per kettle. I batch sparge, and split my sparges between the kettles so they have about the same gravity. Bring each kettle to a boil on a power burner. Split the hops among the kettles. I usually do 90 min boils. By the time 75 min has gone by, there is enough boil off that I can add the contents of the smaller kettle to the larger kettle, and also insert my immersion chiller to get sanitized by the last 15 min of the boil (Add whirlfloc now too! I always forget). However, now that I have a nice spot to brew outdoors when the whether cooperates, I'll be doing propane and finishing the day about 1.5-2hours sooner.

 

I do full boils on my stove top - typically 6-7 gallons of wort from the mash tun. My 10 gallon kettle spans two burners. It takes about 45 minutes to get to a rolling boil.

 

This topic is definitely of interest to me, since I want to do full-volume boils but I'm not sure my stove can support them. In my case, I think I would try to boil 4 gallons in a larger kettle and 2 gallons in a smaller one (after steeping my grains in the larger of the two) and then combine them before adding the malt. Am I missing anything, or would this be a viable option?

 

To the OP - for more detailed information, read here: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-5.html

The bottom line is - if you want to brew an IPA with a bitterness of 80 IBUs - you can use less hops to accomplish this.

If you use software like BeerSmith it will do the math for you.

 

If you combine them before adding the malt (DME or LME), you may find it difficult to maintain the boil. Thus the reason that many people split the boil in the first place.

 

I agree. I don't see the point of bringing two kettles to a boil without the malt extract, which will only serve to cool things down if added after the boil is achieved.

I suggest MCBanjoMike brings the kettles to boil with the extract dissolved proportionally according to the liquid split. Wait until a significant portion of the boil-off has occurred. Then combine. This may require splitting the hops up among the two kettles, which can be complicated or easy, depending on how much the brewer obsesses over details. When I split boil, I try to use an uncomplicated hop schedule. One hop addition for bittering, split proportionally. No more hop additions until the kettles are combined.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. So you're saying I could potentially start boiling in both kettles (with LME), then maybe combine them after 30 minutes or so? That sounds like a pretty good plan. I am having a really hard time fighting the urge to order a 10 gallon Tall Boy from one of the big brewing sites - there's a sale until the end of the day and I happen to have about 40 dollars in credit there right now...

 

Apparently...it's written somewhere in stone the absolute minimum batch size is 5G.
I blame them there Pharaohs.

FOTMI...full-wort boils and stove-top brewing often means a batch size smaller than 5G.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

Yeah, those ancients really loved their beer. They wouldn't waste their time dipping straws in anything less than 5 gallons.