Agreed, thanks. I have a friend who's getting into AG. I'll help him do a batch and see what I think. Now I'll let this thread get back to not nuking extract.
You don't need to do a 60m boil to get enough hop utilization. You just need a lot of hops. Read about hop bursting. I like to make hoppy beers by hop bursting.
How do you get a hot break if most of the extract is added at flameout? I thought the majority of proteins in the hot break come from the grains or extract with the hops only causing a small amount. If the extract never gets vigorously boiled it will be sanitized but the proteins won't have a chance to coagulate. Am I missing something?
I'd be careful about that line of thought... Hop utilization is not the purpose behind the 60 minute duration of the boil, but hop isomerization is. With a shorter boil (say, 30 minutes) you're not going to isomerize the hop oils to the same degree, so you won't get the same bittering effect. You'll get a little more of a flavor impact from your 30 minute "bittering" addition and a little less bittering, so you'd wind up having to increase the amount of hops used in order to get the same perceived bitterness while at the same time increasing that flavor impact. In the end, you'd use more hops and not get quite the same end result as you would have gotten from a 60 minute addition.
The extract LME, or DME, has already been through processing. I believe the hot break, has already occurred.
However, I'm not positive about this, so I'm waiting for Yooper to elaborate...
I am talking 20m boils. Of course you don't get as much bittering effect in a shorter boil. You have to use more hops to get as much bittering. In a shorter boil you don't boil off as much flavor and aroma but you can still get enough bitterness. I do 15m and shorter hop additions all the time. I believe hops between 60m and 20m are a waste. Sure they add something but not enough bittering, flavor or aroma to be worthwhile. Works great if you like hop aroma and flavor without the really high bitterness.
Sure, DME too. Just whisk it in well, as it tends to clump.
for those worried about sanitation, you can certainly add at 15 or 5 minutes instead of flame out. Just keep in mind that even raw milk is pasteurized at 160 for 15 seconds and it's totally safe to give to your baby/children. I don't think DME or LME would have more pathogens than raw milk, but I don't have evidence to back it up. If you're adding it at flame out, the wort is around 209-212 degrees which is certainly adequate.
Yooper, in another thread you gave me some good info on Hot and Cold breaks. Do you think an addition with five minutes left would be enough to get another rolling boil and provide for a good hot break?
I think stratslinger was dead-on: short boils release the oils from the hops and give some bitterness; long boils release the oils AND ISOMERIZE THEM which creates MORE bitterness. You're not isomerizing the oils in a 15-20 minute boil which is why you need more hops to achieve the same perceived bitterness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_acid
"The degree of isomerization and the amount of bitter flavor produced by the addition of hops is highly dependent on the length of time the hops are boiled. Longer boil times will result in isomerization of more of the available alpha acids."
I do partial mash recipes with a bit of extract. My rules for using extract are pretty simple...
1. Only use light, extra light, or wheat extract. Dark malt seems to be more sensitive to boiling, especially if you're not doing full boils. I have used amber and munich extracts in the past and they seem to have a slight caramelly burnt flavor and turn out darker than expected. If you do full boils, then this probably isn't an issue.
2. Only use DME. It will stay fresh longer than LME, and will be lighter than LME. Don't do a flameout addition with DME because it will take about 5 - 10 minutes to get all the clumps out. If you're doing 2lbs or less, I would do the late addition at 10 minutes. If you doing a lot of DME with 4+ lbs, I would add the extract at 15 minutes.
3. Use about half of your extract at the beginning or end of the boil if doing an extract/steeping grains recipe, or use all of your extract as a late addition if doing partial mash. You want may want some extract in there because it will help with hop utilization, but too much extract can hamper hop utilization, especially if you don't do full boils.
I just switched to 3 gallon batches so I am starting to use a lot less extract than before and I am doing (nearly) full boils so I'm not running into some of the problems I mentioned above. In the past I didn't 5 gallon batches with about 5lbs of grains, but now I'm doing 3 gallon batches, with about the same 5lbs of grains but I am only needing a pound or two of DME.
I don't think you made that very clear in your first post. I also recommended reading up on hopbursting, not just going out and doing it.But there's still the other half of my original point that seems to be getting missed - if you're really talking what sounds like a 20 minute boil instead of a 60 minute boil, now your hops are introducing more of a flavor component than a bittering component. So, if you ramp up the amount of hops to get an equivalent amount of IBU's at 20 minutes to what you would get at 60, you're going to have a pretty significantly different tasting beer. This may fit your plan perfectly - this is not to say it's a wrong thing to do. Just making sure that for any newer brewers out there who don't understand the chemistry involved that those two approaches will result in two pretty different beers.
I don't think you made that very clear in your first post. I also recommended reading up on hopbursting, not just going out and doing it.
Reread what you posted. You get isomerization starting when the hops hit the boil. You need more hops to get more bittterness in a shorter boil because they are not as fully isomerized as they would be in a 60m boil. Hops isomerize at different rates dependent on temperature which means they can isomerize even after the boil if you don't drop the temperature low enough.
Yooper, in another thread you gave me some good info on Hot and Cold breaks. Do you think an addition with five minutes left would be enough to get another rolling boil and provide for a good hot break?
It's always been my impression that a "hot break" is less important in extract brewing because the wort has already undergone a hot break as part of the extract manufacture process.
Clonefan94 said:This is exactly how I understand it as well. I remember listening to a podcast, not sure if it was Beersmith or Basic Brewing, but they did an interview with a guy who worked for one of the major extract manufacturers. (again, don't remember which one, sorry) but the process was explained exactly like brewing. He even referred to his company as a brewery, because that is what they do. The only difference, is that instead of going into fermentation, it went to one of the vacuum areas where the wort was condensed to Liquid extract or sprayed to create DME.
So basically, the boiling part of the job was done. I would think, after listening to that, that especially if you were using a hopped extract, you wouldn't want to boil it any longer than you needed to insure sanitation.
I reread my post, and it still makes sense. Wiki (yes, I know, consider the source) seems to say that hop oils don't isomerize until boiled for quite some time, although no specific times are given. And unless you superheat your wort (which would definitely nuke your extract), the temperature stays around 212°. I'm still a rookie, but I've read and heard, and tasted in a few batches of my own: long boil = bitter, med boil = flavor, short boil or dry = aroma. Therefore something different is happening to the hops/oils between a 30m and 60m boil.
My 2¢...
I noticed huge improvements in the clarity and quality of my extract batches with:
-Splitting the addition of malt extract. Roughly 1/2 added at the start of the boil and the other 1/2 at around 10-15 minutes left.
-Full volume boils. Most beginner kits have you adding a few gallons of water to hit the gravity/volume target.
-Use of a 50' 1/2" immersion chiller.
OK so trying to follow the KISS method why not by a good kit say from Midwest
Steep grain for 30 min.
Boil as usual without any LME or DME add hops at designated times
Flame out add both LME and or DME?
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