Extract Question

Have a question on extract brewing.

When I buy a pre-packaged kit they say to boil usually 2-1/2 to 3 gallons, add extract, add hops, cool, transfer to carboy then add remaining water to make the 5 gallons.
Why wouldn't I just bring 5-6 gallons to a boil and do the same as I do with all grain?
I can't see any reason to do the smaller boil except I can use a smaller pot.
Anyone know if there is a any reason?

Just wondering.
Thanks
 
I’m probably wrong, but I just believed it to be 2 reasons:

1. Equipment available for nubes. You won’t need a big pot/ you can use one in the house.

2. East way to chill the wort without having a wort chiller.


I’ve done 6.5g boils with no problems.
 
It may not make an obvious difference, but hop utilization will be different due to volume difference. I believe that its better/greater with the larger volume.
 
The kit instructions are usually written for folks who don't have the equipment to do full-wort boils (large kettle, burner, chiller). Doing a small boil and then topping off with water later works, but is a bit of shortcut that does impact the flavor and mouthfeel of the finished beer.

One of the first major upgrades most homebrewers make is to do full-wort boils. Sometimes this is in combination with moving to all-grain, but that is not required. Extract and extract + steeping grains recipes will come out better with a full-wort boil; with all-grain you don't really have a choice.

I did full-wort boils from my first batch, extract + steeping grains, as I chose to dive in and spring for a 10-gallon Polarware pot. Luckily at the time we had a kitchen stove that could actually get 6 gallons of wort to a rolling boil, but not without some discoloration of the stovetop. I did a second batch, and then before batch #3 I bought a propane burner. It was somewhere around batch #5 or 6 that I moved to all-grain (thanks to Denny Conn's cheap -n- easy batch sparging webpage!).

John mentioned this above, but I'll repeat it: hop utilization is greater in full-wort boils vs. partial boils, so if the hop amounts in the recipe / kit were calculated for partial boils you will need to recalculate and decrease your hops in a full wort boil. If you're not using brewing software (yet) there are plenty of online calculators to help you with this.
 
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