"The Joy of Homebrewing" suggests that malt extract kits are improved by boiling for 30-45 mins (once diluted). However, these kits are pre-hopped; surely by boiling you convert any hops added late in the original boil for flavour/aroma into bitterness (or perhaps simply destroy the aromas).
Should pre-hopped kits be boiled, and if so, do they need new aroma hops adding?
Boiling kits?
As far as I'm aware, the only real advantage of boiling a kit is to aid sterility, and you can do that with a much shorter boil. However, if you want to increase the bitterness you could add hops and boil for longer.
Some aroma might be boiled out of the kit, though I doubt you'd really notice with most kits. Bitterness certainly wouldn't increase unless you added extra hops.
If you're going to the trouble of boiling, you might as well use extract so that you can tailor your brew to exactly what you want.
Hope that helps!
Some aroma might be boiled out of the kit, though I doubt you'd really notice with most kits. Bitterness certainly wouldn't increase unless you added extra hops.
If you're going to the trouble of boiling, you might as well use extract so that you can tailor your brew to exactly what you want.
Hope that helps!
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BarryNL
Totally agree, managed to get a copy on ebay for £8 and was in mint conditionDaaB wrote:The best book i've read although it's out of print is Graham Wheelers Home Brewing CAMRA guide You can often find one on Ebay though
"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." ~ Dave Barry
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EasyBrew
Daab's quite correct, there is no need to boil kits - except for Arkells GWR kits. CAMRA have said that this book will be back in print but that was nearly a year ago. The more people contact them to ask for it, the more likely it is to be reprinted, so get emailing guys, it's an excellent book. There is a site - www.beerinnprint.co.uk who had some still recently.