My first malt extract brew - hop boiling question

[4444244]

Hello all,
I've now been brewing with kits for around 2 years. The last 3 had the addition of hop pellets and a steeping grains in hot water. In each case I added the hops I had for the last 10 minutes of the boil as wanted flavour, not more bitterness. All of these worked well and were the best brews I've done by far.

I now want to do Malt Extract brews and have purchased hops for bittering and flavour. I have used the IBU calculator, but I'm concerned at the fact that I only have a pot of around (at a guess) 7 litre capacity for boiling. My plan was to do this and then top the rest with cold water like I have always done with the kits.

The problem is that on the IBU calculator, when I type 7 litres as the boil capacity with 18-20 litres as the batch amount, the IBU comes in much lower that it should, against inputting the boil at the full 18-20 litres

Is it possible to get the same amount of bitterness and flavour by boiling the hops in less water or am I going to need a full sized boiler to boil up the entire batch size I intend to make.

Hope this all makes sense - thanks in advance.

 

[Slid]

The accepted wisdom seems to be that you need a large boil volume to bitter your beer economically. Since bittering hops are quite cheap and 30g or so gives a lot of bittering, I would suggest that even halving the extraction rate might not be as big an issue as it may seem.

The flavour hops might be left for up to 25 mins in the wort and the aroma hops added dry later. Won't get you the same result exactly. Maybe not far away.

If you live near a Wilko, they do a 15L pot (useable brewing volume 12.5L) which I, and many others, have done decent boils in. Last I saw, it was £17.

Another approach is to buy a bittered kit, which is often not much dearer than extract, and use that to get you a fair amount of the bittering needed.

If you want more details, please ask!

 

[AdrianTrace]

Full volume boils would be best, but I have a different approach (despite being able to boil full volume) - I steep my grains in the boil liquor, but generally my malt extract (or most of it) goes straight in the FV. My boil is then of wort that is around 1.004 or less, giving great hop utilisation.

This may not be best practice - Liquid malt has already been boiled, so it should be no problem, but spraymalt may not have been boiled - skipping the boil may leave protein in the wort, causing a haze later (I haven't noticed it so far).

Plus there is a sanitisation aspect to the boil (although I would hop that the extract is sanitary :-?) I'm toying with chucking in the extract in the last 15 minutes, or even at flame out, as the temperature should sanitise the extract, but allow the hop utilisation of a lower SG boil.

 

[Notlaw]

If you live near a Wilko, they do a 15L pot (useable brewing volume 12.5L) which I, and many others, have done decent boils in. Last I saw, it was ��£17.

Here is a link for the pot.

http://www.wilko.com/wilko-stock-pot-12l/invt/0322498

 

[4444244]

To be honest I've been meaning to get a 'dedicated' pot for my brewing. I've been using the general pot and pans from the kitchen up to now, so a larger pot of that size seems to be the answer, many thanks for that.

A quick check on the IBU calculator at 12.5 litre boil seems to give the potential results I'm after now.

 

[mrobinson]

I've got a pair of those wilko pots and they've served me well. They both just about fit on my standard 4 hob cooker, so I can split a boil.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi!
Have you considered the Texas Two-Step?
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=321669

 

[Sandimas]

I've been doing Extract brewing for years and a 6-8L boil is absolutely fine.

Plus when you make up volume to 40L with cold water it'll come out around 20C. If you boil too a high a volume you'll need some method of cooling.

 

[MyQul]

You can do the full volume hop amounts in a smaller amount of wort(smaller pot), then dilute it in the FV like a kit. It's what I do (although I make a concentrated AG wort rather than extract). As slid says the hop utilisation rate is lower in a concentrated wort so I add 5 IBU more to my boil, although some people who do what I do (Maxi-BIAB) dont bother

 

[MyQul]

Plus when you make up volume to 40L with cold water it'll come out around 20C. If you boil too a high a volume you'll need some method of cooling.

Or you can no-chill like I do

 

[4444244]

I've been doing Extract brewing for years and a 6-8L boil is absolutely fine.

Plus when you make up volume to 40L with cold water it'll come out around 20C. If you boil too a high a volume you'll need some method of cooling.

So realistically, an 8 litre boil with same amount of hops and same boil time would result in the same IBU as say a 12-13 litre boil?

I've now bought my large pot from Amazon and it's on it's way, but can see it would be easier with slightly less boiled liquor to get the temperature good from the start.

 

[Covrich]

I think what a lot of people do is only add half the extract for the boil and the rest at flame out or late on.. same principle with a partial mash.. If I was to do this again I would add the extract probably seperatly especially if DME.. adding DME to a steaming pot is tricky