Hot answers tagged boil
15
You want to boil with your lid off.
Part of the process of boiling is to remove dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which is a sulfur compound off flavor that tastes like cooked corn. DMS is formed by heating the wort. If you leave the lid on the kettle DMS won't evaporate with the steam and you'll have more of the flavor in your beer.
You might also run the risk of ...
15
There is an infection risk any time you open up your fermenter and especially when you throw stuff into it. If you dry hop at the right time you reduce that risk.
The alcohol built up protects against infection
The hops already in the beer act as a preservative
The pH is unfriendly to new growth
Most of the easy to eat sugars are already consumed
For ...
12
Boiling is a fairly poorly understood process. That being said here is what I know.
Partial-wort Boil
Ups
You probably already have all the necessary equipment
Small footprint
Easy to manage
You can use your kettle for other things
Downs
Hop utilization suffers, meaning you must use more hops to get the same level of bitterness
There is a limit to ...
11
When I did extract I tended to just go from the tap right into the fermentor with the wort. I can't say that I ever had a bad batch because of it. But it certainly can happen. If you have a way to boil water for 15 minutes, then store it in a sanitary and sealed contain while it cools back down to a useable temperature...that is the safer way to go.
If ...
9
The reason for the prolonged boil is to drive off the volatile chemical DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide). DMS give beer that cooked corn flavor and aroma. DMS is created as the wort increases above 140F from the precursor molecule SMM(S-methyl-methionine).
All base malts have some SMM, but during the kilning process post malting it is driven off. However Pilsner ...
9
When I did extract, we always used a jug spring water to top off the extra few gallons. You can sanitize the bottle mouth with some StarSan or other sanitizing solution, and then just pour the bottle in. You can also keep the jug in the fridge prior to use to cool your wort when you add it. This way you avoid boiling anything, but are still pretty safe from ...
8
Most "Chocolate" stouts get their flavor from a combination of roasted malts - chocolate malt, pale chocolate malt or coffee malt. There are delicious exceptions, like Young's Double Chocolate Stout.
Nibs are dehusked, roasted cacao seeds. They are high in fat (relatively tasteless cocoa butter), which does not add much flavor and which might cause problems ...
8
Put in the volume of the water you're boiling. Hopville knows how to handle partial boils.
As for your second question, I think that's still up for debate. Beer bitterness and hop utilization is not fully understood. The original theory was that the high concentration of sugar in a partial boil (or any high-gravity boil) would prevent the alpha acids from ...
8
There are several things to consider here. Certainly slowing down your boil will change your rate of evaporation, but that's only a problem if you're having a hard time hitting your target volumes. The main consideration is your bitterness contribution from hops.
Alpha acid isomerization, like most chemical reactions, is temperature dependent. It happens at ...
7
It means putting an addition of hops at flameout, or when you turn off the kettle. Those late addition hops can add hop aroma and some nice flavor.
I wouldn't take your hops out when the boil is done for hoppy beers. Leaving those hops in while the wort cools can give you more of that aroma that some styles call for. Jamil Zainasheff has some tips for Hop ...
7
I have half a blog post in my head about the six -ations of the boil. Here's a sample.
Also listen to this episode of Brew Strong for a lot of good information.
In general, shoot for an 8 — 12% evaporation rate.
Evaporation
The most obvious one. The more water you drive off, the more concentrated your wort will turn out. This has the effect of ...
7
Commercial micro-brewers can bring 10 barrels (2880 pints) to the boil in 30 - 45 mins using a gas jet of flame in a pipe that passes through the kettle - can't remember the technical name for it. What they do do, though, is recirculate the wort whilst they heat. This will keep it on the move and prevent hot spots/scorching/caramelising and any other ...
7
Usually the pellets will dissolve during boil and settle down to the bottom of your kettle when you cool your wort. Then, when transferring to the fermentor you can just leave them behind (easier to do with a siphon).
Or
Use a hop bag - put the pellets on the bag, when you are done with the boil simply pull the bag out.
6
Doing a full-wort boil (all 5 gallons) offers a few technical advantages over partial-wort boils. There are a number of reactions that depend on the concentration of wort.
First, the wort-darkening reactions are more pronounced at a smaller volume meaning your wort will come out a little darker than you expect.
Second and more importantly, the rate of hop ...
6
The main problem that I ran in to with my partial boils was that the wort caramelized because I was using a pot that didn't evenly distribute the heat well enough. And since there was less water than a full boil, the sugar concentration was higher. So, I had hot spots on the bottom of the pot that would burn the sugar in my wort.
Also the higher the gravity ...
6
Typically, the long boil is intended to increase melanoidin formation ("kettle carmelization") and decrease DMS in wort with a lot of pilsener malt. The former appears to be the case, here:
"While you could go with a shorter
boil, the 90 minute boil enhances the
blood-red color. It also adds a touch
more melanoidin and caramel notes."
It's ...
6
To augment STW's answer, a Maillard reaction is a browning chemical reaction between an amino acid and a sugar. Heat encourages these reactions. Carmelization is an example of a Maillard reaction, although there are others.
These reactions are responsible for the flavor of the crust of bread, as well as most nutty, caramel, and toffee notes in beer. ...
6
You've covered the main reasons that I could think of off the top of my head, ie, pasteurisation, flavour formation and isomerisation of hops. A quick search reminded me of the other two, which is that it drives off unwanted volatile compounds (eg, SMM - the precursor to DMS) and it causes proteins and polyphenols/tannins to bind and precipitate out in the ...
6
According to Brewkaiser, the ideal boil pH (room temp sample pre boil) should be around 5.2-5.4. Much lower than that, and you'll reduce hop utilitilization, but much higher and the hop utiliziation increases, but the bitterness is harsher. (The same process that causes tannin extraction at higher pH in the mash is at play in the boil also.)
A higher pH in ...
5
For most things I just use my trusty stick, otherwise known as a thin dowel from the hardware store. Pour one gallon into your pot, stand stick in pot, note water line, and mark with a sharpie or other implement. The curvature of a pot can affect the height of each tick mark, so I usually experimentally measure a few more gallons until I'm at the straight ...
5
First wort hopping is the practice of adding hops to kettle when you take first runnings from the mash tun. As the kettle fills you heat the wort to boiling. The "boil hops" are in the kettle before the boil begins and steep in the warm wort.
The best way to carry this over to extract brewing would be to add your first hops to the kettle when the wort ...
5
In the fourth & final Brew Strong episode on high gravity brewing, Jamil, John, and Tasty touched briefly on using pre-1981 pennies in the boil to help provide minerals (Copper, Zinc) to the yeast to help them survive the stress of a big fermentation. (They mention it around the 30:00 mark.)
5
I'm assuming that your recipe is all-grain from some of your previous questions, but if it is an extract recipe you probably don't need to worry since most of the DMS boiled off. A little over a month ago I made a hefe (from extract) and only had a 15 minute boil time. Neither me, nor anyone who has tasted it can detect any DMS.
If it's all-grain, what ...
5
No, you don't have to boil the full volume in AG brewing. I only had a 7 gal. pot when I started AG so I's boil about 5 gal. down to 3.5-4, then add top off water. Boiling less will reduce your efficieny because you don't collect as much wort. You need to use more grain to make a higher gravity wort at less volume, so you can top off afterward. That was ...
5
A full wort boil is not absolutely necessary, but you shouldn't be topping off too much of your volume. Your efficiency will suffer greatly from topping off. Even if you're able to hit 80% effiency with 11.5L of wort (a big if), after boiling and topping off to 23L you'll end up with below 40% brewhouse effiency. You would also definitely be limited in ...
5
I use a bucket for my fermentor so I bought a steel mesh strainer. I then sanitize the strainer with starsan and place the strainer across the top of the bucket and run the wort through it. This strains out the hop gunk and helps with aeration by turning the wort into droplets as it falls into the fermentor.
5
Bottom line: its impossible for the gravity to decrease during boil. You only evaporate water, leaving an increasingly sugary solution.
So there is an error with your preboil postboil or both gravity readings.
Most common reasons for incorrect readings:
Incomplete Mixings
Failure to to a temperature adjustment
Related to the second - Uncalibrated ...
4
I've put hops for dry-hopping into a sterilized mesh bag (note* the bag was boiled in a pot of water and cooled with lid on to RT before adding the hops). I then squirt the outside of the bag with a squirt-bottle filled with grain alcohol. This kept things sterile and allowed for hop infusion without messy hop bits ending up in the final beer.
4
Okay, well there are a few things to consider.
How big is your pot? If you don't have the headroom to handle the inevitable foam, you will have a mess.
Can you easily chill five gallons of wort without using a cold water additive? If you don't have a wort chiller, this can be a big issue.
The amount of wort you boil, the specific gravity of that wort, ...
4
Taylor's partial boil answer is a good one, particularly if you are limited to the typical small-sized electric stove found in most apartments. Another issue with boiling wort in an apartment is excessive humidity, and more problematic, the smell drifting into your neighbor's loft.
But if you want to do a full boil, there is an alternative: go outside! ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
