Adding extract at the end of boil

[PEACOCKSUIT]

Iv done a bit of reading which suggests that it might be good practice to only add LME/DME at the end of a boil as it isn't really necessary to boil the extract. In fact it is well suggested that boiling extract may have a negative impact on flavour.

Therefore is it possible to just boil the hops in the smallest possible volume needed for good utilization and then add the malt extract right at the end? Or even add it to the FV with the cooled hopped liquor plus a bit extra if needed to top upto 23L?

Do hops actually need malt present during the boil for whatever reason to get good utilization?

Cheers.

[Swiller]

I started extract brewing last year and I always add
DME/LME at the end of boil on advice from old
hands at it. I add it as soon as I switch off the boiler
so it has less chance of burning on the element.

J

[Kev888]

It'll be interesting to see where this one goes. I always boiled LME brews and in fact went to great lenths to do so with inadequately sized pans, though to be fair I'd normally infuse some special grains as well. But my extract days were pre-JBK and I later discovered not based upon the most universally praised source of info. I guess the extract has already been through the works in order to become extract so i may have wasted hours in the past..

Cheers
Kev

[PEACOCKSUIT]

So ina given recipe which makes 20l or thereabouts of beer, is it even necessary to boil the hop sin the full volume or can you get away with less?

[beerandgarden]

I'm going to do my first extract and steeped grain brew for my next batch and was wondering the same thing. A 12L pot is the biggest one I can find locally so if I get that I'll probably have to do a reduced volume in the boil. I've been reading John Palmer's 'How to brew' and was planning on following his method, but that requires boiling a bit more than 12L and hence a larger pot. So I was wondering with the reduced volume whether to add all the LME or just part of it and then the remainder at the end. I've gathered from reading his book that boiling the hops with the malt extract is necessary for hops utilisation. But also that a higher concentration of malt actually reduces the utilisation, so I was thinking of just using 1 can in the boil and adding another can at the end. But this thread has posed an interesting idea that has me curious - would it actually be better to go with an even more reduced amount of malt in the boil, and if so, what would the ideal amount be? Looking forward to more input on this.
Cheers,
Aidan

[kane]

So ina given recipe which makes 20l or thereabouts of beer, is it even necessary to boil the hop sin the full volume or can you get away with less?

From reading a reply on another thread i listened to this podcast from March 4th

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

Basically they were testing to see if boil volume had an affect on hop utilisation, there were three setups (all hops were boiled for the same time):

1) Full Volume boil - boil all the extract in the full volume of water required
2) Partial Boil - Boil all the extract in half the final volume (topping off in the fermentation vessel)
3) Late extract addition - Boil half the extract in half the volume, adding the last half just before the end of the boil, then topping up in the fermenter.

And the results from blind taste tests - Basically no noticeable difference between them
Although from the results it seemed there was a slight difference with the late extract addition, giving a harsher bitterness compared to the other two.

These results were also backed up by lab experiments.

So from now on i think im going to boil all the extract in my 15L stockpot and not worry about hop utilisation

Hope this helps

Kane

[beerandgarden]

What about SG of the boil - that has a bigger effect on hops utilisation than boil volume, right? So you would have a major difference between SG of 2) and 3). In that experiment did they increase the hops in 2) to account for this?

[kane]

No the same amount of hops in all three, i think that was the purpose of the test, to see if the SG of the boil has an affect on hop utilisation.

Edit: You've got me worried now i'll listen to it again just to make sure!

I found this on the brew your own blog about the experiment:

"how do these methods compare when brewing a very bitter beer, such as an IPA or double IPA? Specifically, are you limiting you hop bitterness by doing a partial boil? And, does adding your extract late in a partial boil brew really improve hop utilization compared to the standard method? "

"Each beer would be brewed from the same recipe, on the same equipment, by the same brewer, yielding the same amount of wort in the fermenter and fermented with the same yeast; ideally, every detail in the brewing would be exactly the same except for the method of wort production. To yield a good result, the beer would have to have a level of expected bitterness high enough so that we would expect the wort production method could have an impact on it.
After the beer had conditioned, the brewer would then taste test the six batches and see how their levels of bitterness compared."

That seems to indicate the same recipe will be used for each, therefore the same amount of hops? Although they don't state that explicitly.

Kane

[beerandgarden]

Wierd. If you run the numbers in a tool such as BeerSmith, you can see the boil SG having a major effect on the IBUs. So when creating a recipe you have to increase the hops quantities as the SG of the boil increases so that you end up with your target bitterness.

[beerandgarden]

Well in this other current thread (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=38421), some are saying that BeerSmith and all the commonly used calculations are wrong and that BG doesn't matter. It's all a bit confusing now...

[badgerdan]

I'm really wanting to work this out too. I've always boiled 10 litres of water with all the hops but 50% of the extract, the rest being added the last 5-10 minutes, this for a 20 litre brew.

Beers have come out ok, but have always wondered that maybe they'd be really nice if boiled the the full 20.

My current brew in brewsmith gives me these values
23.4 ibu when boiling 2.5kgs of dme in 10 litres of water for a 20 litre brew
35.2 ibu when boiling 1.25kgs of dme in 10 litres of water for a 20 litre brew
35.5 ibu when boiling 2.5kgs of dme in 20 litres of water for a 20 litre brew
43.5 ibu when boiling 1.25kgs of dme in 20 litres of water for a 20 litre brew
53 ibu when boiling 0kgs of dme in 10 litres of water for a 20 litre brew
53.4 ibu when boiling 0kgs of dme in 20 litres of water for a 20 litre brew

Would topping up with 1.25kgs of dme and 10 litres of water after the initial boil (row 2) then water my ibu's down from 35.2 to about 17.6?
Really want to adjust my beers taste everytime I've brewed one but as i've now got a brew bucket I can brew a bigger amount so would like to be able to know what my ibu's will be after each type of volume boiled