bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
What is the reason for boiling the wort? If I have extracted the sugars by mashing grains or if I have a can of LME or DME what is the reason or reasons for boiling the wort for 60 - 90 minutes? Presumably I can boil hops in water to isomerize their acids. Is the issue that I boil the wort to enable proteins to coagulate and drop out of the liquid? Is there no enzyme that could be added that would perform that action? Is the issue by boiling I enable certain DMS precursors to boil off but if I don't heat the wort after the sugars have been extracted are those precursors produced? Is the issue to simply pasteurize the wort? Then why at such a high temperature and for so long? Why wouldn't UV pasteurization be at least as effective? What is the deal with boiling five or six gallons (about 50 plus pounds ) of sticky liquid? I'm really very curious