[Joe_Beer]

Over the weekend, I acquired enough gear to do a full volume boil for a 5 gallon batch. I have a 5 gallon extract kit with 9# of LME and wondering if there's an easy way to do a full volume boil on it? I've searched around and found a couple discussions. One got into some complicated discussion involving equations I don't quite understand.  The other recommended adding all the LME at the start of the boil (I have 6# and 3# addition in this kit) and then add water to get to 6 gallons. I'm not sure I want 9# of LME sitting around the bottom of the kettle before I start the boil though. Any thoughts?

[Bob357]

If you have the ability do reach and maintain a rolling boil there won't be anything sitting around on the bottom. This assumes that you're taking the time to make sure the extract(s) are mixed well. Boiloff rate depends on several factors. The biggest are the surface area of your kettle and boil vigor. Without having done a full boil you're going to be winging it initially.
The best I can suggest is to figure about a gallon/hour at a reasonable rolling boil if you're using a decent propane burner. Have some extra boiled and cooled water handy in case you come up short on the final volume.

[Andy Farke]

Another option is to bring the full volume of water to a boil, turn off the flame, then add the extract. Stir well to make sure it's dissolved, then turn the flame back on. This will help to avoid scorched extract on the bottom of the kettle.

Boil-off rate will depend on your system, and you'll dial it in as you do a few batches. For my system and the boils I do (bubbling, but not roiling), around 0.65 gallons/hour (5.5 gallon batches) is pretty typical...

[Joe_Beer]

Thanks for the reminder about turning off the heat to add the LME.  As Bob357 mentions, winging it and having some top-off water on hand sounds about right. I guess I was also trying to figure out how much the 9# of LME will affect the boil volume. It's going to add some, but how much? It just occurred to me I could fill a 1 gallon bucket with water, place it in a tub, and put the LME in the bucket. The amount of water displaced should tell me how much the LME will add to the final volume. I just don't want to end up a  half-gallon over because I planned on loosing a gallon to boil off but the LME ended up adding a gallon-and-a-half to the final volume or something.

[Andy Farke]

Ah, I understand now, sorry! Didn't read closely enough...yeah, I think the "boil with as much as you can and then top off at the end" strategy is best. Many malt canisters will give volume on the outside in addition to weight, or at the very least you could estimate that, to figure out how much space it will take up. An estimate I saw elsewhere said that 1 lb of LME is around 10.5 oz. of liquid volume (I suspect it varies by brand and variety of LME). So, 9 lbs. would be around 0.75 gallons. Probably could estimate 1 gallon of LME volume to be on the safe side. And the displacement method sounds like a pretty good way to get it more precisely if you needed.

[Richard]

BeerSmith3 uses 0.085 gallons/lb for LME, so 9 lbs would be 0.765 gallons.

[Joe_Beer]

BeerSmith3 uses 0.085 gallons/lb for LME, so 9 lbs would be 0.765 gallons.

That thing sounds handy and I keep reading about it. I thought it was strictly a "beer chef" tool but I should look into it, or at least an online tool.

I filled  the kettle with 6.5 gallons and put both extract additions in. It *was* about 3/4 of a gallon more so took about that much water out. I was thinking I would loose at least a gallon to boil off and the last time I did this, on my stove top, I lost what looked like a half gallon of water during steeping. Thought I'd be right close to 5 by the time the boil was over. After 45 minutes of boil however, I was still around 5.75 gallons. I pulled about a half gallon out of the kettle and added the chiller and last of the additions. I was at 1.060 in the fermenter with what looked like 5.25 gallons (LOTS of foam so it was hard to tell exactly).  So, lessons learned: My "grain bill" on this kit was much smaller than my last kit and I didn't catch it right away. That's probably where most of my water went during steeping last time. The new equipment doesn't work the same way as the old equipment. Also, you can always add more water. It's much harder to take back out .

[Andy Farke]

Thanks for the update! Yeah, it's definitely a bit of trial-and-error whenever you change process or equipment...it takes me _at least_ 2 or 3 batches to get things dialed in whenever I've made changes.