Hot Break in Extract Brew

[Paddy Bubbles]

I know, you read so many conflicting stories about break material and "hot-side aeration".

I've got an immersion chiller on my shopping list, but I want to do a low-tech extract brew first, to see if there's a difference.

So, do I understand you correctly? You don't worry about the break material. After cooling you transfer the wort to the FV along with the break material?

[EoinMag]

lads, hot break is not primarily the scum that you see on the top of a brew at the start of the boil.

It is a fleck a bit like a fish scale that you see in a boil when you are close to the end.

This has been discussed before.

I skim the scum, I still get a hot break later, I've only seen it clearly in one brew I did, it was a pilsener and was a very light brew.




The flecks in this are the hot break, not the scum, although it's argued that is also a component but it's not the real hot break.

This should not be seen in an extract brew, the breaks are not as important in extract brewing at all as those materials have mostly been removed in brewing quality extracts and won't be present in anything close to the amounts they would be present in an all-grain brew.

[trucker5774]

Well, you live and learn.......so what I described as toilet paper, is that hot or cold break. Are you saying this flecking is pre chilling?

[GrowlingDogBeer]

You don't need to worry about any break material going into your fermenter, it will settle out and not cause any off flavours.

I also believe hot side aeration is an urban myth, certainly for UK Home Brewers, although some might disagree. I'm pretty sure I've seen Graham Wheeler on this site saying the same thing.

See this link for more about Hot Side Aeration

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=36777&hilit=hot+side+aeration

[Paddy Bubbles]

I skim the scum, I still get a hot break later, I've only seen it clearly in one brew I did, it was a pilsener and was a very light brew.

This should not be seen in an extract brew, the breaks are not as important in extract brewing at all as those materials have mostly been removed in brewing quality extracts and won't be present in anything close to the amounts they would be present in an all-grain brew.

That's great info.

Is there a perceptible difference when you skim the scum off the hot wort?

[EoinMag]

I skim the scum, I still get a hot break later, I've only seen it clearly in one brew I did, it was a pilsener and was a very light brew.

This should not be seen in an extract brew, the breaks are not as important in extract brewing at all as those materials have mostly been removed in brewing quality extracts and won't be present in anything close to the amounts they would be present in an all-grain brew.

That's great info.

Is there a perceptible difference when you skim the scum off the hot wort?

I know that German brewers do it traditionally as they tend to religiously follow a dude from Weihenstephaner called Narziss, who produced their brewing bible. I have just come to the conclusion that if it presnts itself like that it's too inviting not to remove. I've not run a side by side to know the difference, but it has to help because it's removing compounds that are responsible for staling of the beer in the long term. As a BIAB brewer I possibly have higher levels of those compounds too, so I'd rather they are removed although I can't say shelf-life has ever been an issue.....more like pipeline

[EoinMag]

If you think about it with extract brewing at it's simplest being the addition of a can of gloop to a kilo of sugar there is no boil at all, and hence no breaks, the only difference with an extract brew is that you add hops and the oils certainly cause some break material, and if you do partial mashes or steeping you'll be adding some proteins back, but still nothing like the amounts in an all-grain brew.

[trucker5774]

This is what Palmer says....

7.2 The "Hot Break"

A foam will start to rise and form a smooth surface. This is good. If the foam suddenly billows over the side, this is a boil-over (Bad). If it looks like it is going to boil over, either lower the heat or spray the surface with water from a spray bottle. The foam is caused by proteins in the wort that coagulate due to the rolling action of the boil. The wort will continue to foam until the protein clumps get heavy enough to sink back into the pot. You will see particles floating around in the wort. It may look like Egg Drop Soup. This is called the Hot break and may take 5-20 minutes to occur, depending on the amount of protein in your extract. Often the first hop addition triggers a great deal of foaming, especially if hop pellets are used. I recommend waiting until the Hot break occurs before doing your first Hop addition and timing the hour. The extra boiling time won't hurt.

7.4 Cooling the Wort

At the end of the boil, it is important to cool the wort quickly. While it is still hot, (above 140°F) bacteria and wild yeasts are inhibited. But it is very susceptible to oxidation damage as it cools. There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer.

[EoinMag]

Yeah so the foam is the precursor to the hot break but is not the hot break. I'd disagree with his timescales though, on a homebrew level it takes an hour or more for the hot break to happen.

[Halyard]

Palmer also notes (in the third edition, not in the free online first edition) that extract brewers will have little or no hot break as it's removed by the production process. Certainly I've never seen any, and I have tried to wait for it as an experiment.

Halyard

[Spud395]

It's my understanding that in extract brewing, the extract you are using has gone through the boil process allready.
As a result the break material (protien) will have been dealt with in the manyfacturing process, so nothing to worry about.

Now I could be talking out of my arse as I've only ever made starters with extract.
If I am sorry, chill again and crack open another one, but I'm sure I read it somewhere
And if not as in mast thing's brewing, give it a go and see how you get on!

Edit: It seem there was a 2nd page of replies that I didnt see
Ah well, there you go.
Not sure on that "it takes an hour for hot break because I saw it once" Eoin, I'm pretty sure I've witnessed it much earlier in the boil, but then I brew AG!

[potatoes]

Hi Paddy Bubbles,

From my experience with extract brewing, there wasn't a lot of hot or cold break. So I cant see it causing you too many problems. However, I was using DME when I was doing these brews, maybe there is more hot break with LME. I only really noticed hot and cold break when I did all grain brews. I noticed you said you are doing a partial? Is this a partial mash? Or is this steeping some grains? This may contribute to your break.

In terms of chilling the wort, I put my pot into a sink of water and replaced the water when it got hot. Then when I was transferring to the FV, I put a big sieve on top of the pot, and just poured it. As I had used the leaf hops, they also worked as sieve to hold back break material. When I was doing an extract brew, there wasnt much break material left over.

If you want to use ice cubes in the wort as a method of chilling, I would boil the water, sterilise the Ice cube tray and then chuck them in the wort.

Does that help answer your question?

Dan

[potatoes]

opps just realised how old this conversation is....