Brewing Extract.... when to add the extract?

[ScottM]

Is there any benefit to adding the extract at the beginning of the boil? Through reading around the hop utilisation will always be best with no sugar in the mix, as the boil volume will be based on water rather than just sugar and water.

This got me thinking, what about dumping in all the extract with something like 10 mins of the boil left? Is there any negative to trying this out?

 

[Brewmarc]

Its been a long while since I did any extract brewing, :shock: but when I did I used to boil all the ingredients togeather for about 1 hour, including small quantaties of wort steeped in any specialist grains. sure your hop utilisation will be less but for the sake of a few extra hops Im convinced that you will get better results in the finished beer this way, & most published extract recipes have calculated the right quantaties of hops for the bitterness & flavour. :

 

[Pearlfisher]

POPs of Cheltenham homebrew kits require the hops to be boiled separately in just water and then are added to the LME at the end of the boil.
It produces the best ale I've done so far.

 

[wilsoa1111]

Ah, u must be referring to that technique (yes there is one cant remember the name) where u add maybe a cup of malt - to get the water ready for the hops, get a good bit of the ibus then add the rest of extract late, to increase hop utlilsation and decrease extract browning- no negatives aside from using beersmith to re calc the recipes ibus (it has a late extract option):

http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/02/20/be ... additions/

other option to save hops is the texas two step, but is basically just boiling the full volume of wort half in the first go

tbh wont save hops for me cos they instead go into the aroma or dry hop or i shorten the boil time down

and yeah been looking at playing with extract while im home over the summer without my gear :P

 

[ScottM]

To be honest I hadn't found any references to what I was talking about. Just basically from hearing "rumours" on various forums when googling lol.

People have different opinions on the effects of water/DME with regards to hop utilisation and its effects.

The angle I'm trying to come at it from is if there IS a difference, then is there a difference with not adding the LME till the end of the boil. If there isn't a difference in that regard then I'm as well going in that direction as there is no doubt I'll get the best hop utilisation while not jeopardising the brew as a whole.

The whole method may lead to exactly the same outcome as if I added the LME right at the start, but if it's no harm no foul then I reckon that's what I'll do. Covers all the bases as they say :)

Oh, the recipe is my own so there isn't really any reference to work out the quantity of hops I should be using vs the boil length. I'll have a look at beer smith and see what it reckons. I believe that was mentioned in one of the threads I viewed and it was commented that the calculation for hop utilisation vs boil size was way off. Things may have changed since then. Fact remains though, I'll need to start somewhere

 

[cwiseman77]

I have John Palmers "How to Brew" book and he suggests doing the half and half approach for brewing extract:

1. Steep speciality grains
2. Add half of your DME or LME
3. Do your boil following your hop scehdule
4. After boil add the other half of your DME/LME
5. Cool wort and so on......

He argues that the higher gravity boil produced by adding all the extraxt at the beginning can have many negative affects, foam stability, wort darkening and off flavours caused by "Malliard" reactions. The off flavours which include molasses he says can actually blend in nicely with the malt profile of darker beers but will "stick out like a sore thumb" in lighter beers, pilsners etc... Work darkening is obviously more of an issue with lighter beers.

To be honest I've never tried it always add all mine at step 2. However, I hadn't really thought about much and in hindsight I do sometimes struggle with lighter beers so may try this method in future.

 

[cwiseman77]

p.s. to answer your initial question Palmer says higher gravity boils certainly do effect hop utilisation but the effects are not "economically significant" for the home brewer. Personally I worry about hop utilisation due to the fact I do a concentrated boil and always chuck in a few more "just in case".

 

[ScottM]

Great stuff, thanks.

I wonder what Palmer would think of adding a token amount during the boil then adding the bulk at the end.

I'm definitely going to go for it that way just to see what happens. I can't think of any negatives.

One thing I did read in the beer smith article is that adding at the end brings out a LOT of extra bitterness from the hops, thus increasing the hop utilisation. With this in mind I can only see this method of being positive as I would need to slightly increase the hops due to the shorter boil volume. With the late addition I would need to slightly decrease the hops, so hopefully this should cancel itself out.

Really looking forward to giving this a go now :)

 

[cwiseman77]

Think I'm going to try the "half and half approach" next time. Palmer's book is also available for free online, although this chump still padi for a hard copy. Might be a slightly abridged version online.

http://www.howtobrew.com

 

[rpt]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

 

[ScottM]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

I don't think that's necessary with DME/extract, as it will have already gone through that process :)

 

[cwiseman77]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

I don't think that's necessary with DME/extract, as it will have already gone through that process :)

If add extract at the end you need to leave it for 10 minutes to pasturise before cooling...again I'm paraphrasing Palmer

 

[rpt]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

I don't think that's necessary with DME/extract, as it will have already gone through that process :)

Are you sure?

 

[ScottM]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

I don't think that's necessary with DME/extract, as it will have already gone through that process :)

Are you sure?

Yup. Never known anyone to boil DME/LME when adding to a kit beer, and it's certainly said not to be necessary according to any kit instructions etc.

 

[ScottM]

I thought the boil was necessary to drive off DMS and produce the hot break.

I don't think that's necessary with DME/extract, as it will have already gone through that process :)

If add extract at the end you need to leave it for 10 minutes to pasturise before cooling...again I'm paraphrasing Palmer

I would be surprised if that was necessary. I would suggest that's perhaps just a precaution, more than something that is required. Sugar won't have any bacteria on it so not really a lot to pasteurise :)

 

[rpt]

Yup. Never known anyone to boil DME/LME when adding to a kit beer, and it's certainly said not to be necessary according to any kit instructions etc.

When adding malt extract to a kit it's a relatively small proportion of the total fermentables, so not boiling isn't going to matter. But when all the fermentables come from extract I think you do need to boil. John Palmer's extract brewing instructions talk about a hot break happening and all the other recipes I've seen require it to be boiled. If that wasn't the case, then why boil it at all when hop utilisation would be higher in water? Of course, this received wisdom may be incorrect - the only way to know for sure would be to find information from an extract manufacturer.

 

[ScottM]

Yup. Never known anyone to boil DME/LME when adding to a kit beer, and it's certainly said not to be necessary according to any kit instructions etc.

When adding malt extract to a kit it's a relatively small proportion of the total fermentables, so not boiling isn't going to matter. But when all the fermentables come from extract I think you do need to boil. John Palmer's extract brewing instructions talk about a hot break happening and all the other recipes I've seen require it to be boiled. If that wasn't the case, then why boil it at all when hop utilisation would be higher in water? Of course, this received wisdom may be incorrect - the only way to know for sure would be to find information from an extract manufacturer.

Adding DME to a kit instead of sugar equates to a huge proportion of the total fermentables.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm planning on boiling the hops, as planned, in the water and then adding the LME at the end of the boil. I'm actually at the point of wondering if I should add the LME to the boil at all, I could just strain the hop tea into the FV and then pour the LME in on top.

As for the Palmer notes, he will be referring to American products. I believe, as in I've read, that the quality of the UK extracts, and even the grains, are higher than the US counterparts. I think there was actually a thread on here, discussing the problems with DMS and DME/LME, which mentioned the quality difference. Even taking that out of the equation I don't think there is merit to the argument, nothing that I could find to read anyway. It's just a "do it this way because it works" approach as far as I can see.

 

[rpt]

As for the Palmer notes, he will be referring to American products. I believe, as in I've read, that the quality of the UK extracts, and even the grains, are higher than the US counterparts. I think there was actually a thread on here, discussing the problems with DMS and DME/LME, which mentioned the quality difference.

I think you are right. I've just found this on the Muntons website:

People in my home brewing community are saying that you no longer have to boil LME or DME for 60 minutes. Only 10-15 minutes. The claim is its not necessary since it already don’t in manufacturing of the malt. The motivation is so they don’t caramelize the malt any more than necessary which would make their beers darker than the desired colour. Is this true? – Thanks!

To be honest with you don't need to boil Muntons LME or DME at all as we pasteurise our LME and the DME, by the nature of the process, will be pasteurised. By not boiling you will maintain the delicate malt flavour in our products and obtain a far better beer.

No reference to the hot break though and this may not apply to all malt extracts available here.

 

[ScottM]

Yeah I think I remember reading that quote, didn't recall it being muntons but that's good to know.

No reference to the hot break though and this may not apply to all malt extracts available here.

This is something else that I've never witnessed when brewing with extract. I've done a few now and never noticed anything floating around the top of my brew during boil. I've never had anything left over either, other than the hops of course, so perhaps this is another benefit to using muntons spraymalt.

I've never bothered with it before though, no point in starting now

 

[ScottM]

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/f ... pic=5184.0

Found this, the person seems to know what they are talking about. Can't be taken as gospel but it's aligned with my thinking of it all.