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I've been doing it lately, assuming it will reduce the amount of crap I have to filter out after the boil, and it seems to reduce the amount of head I get during the boil (less chance of a boil over).

Does anybody else do this or does anybody have any insight as to whether or not I should be doing it and why?

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3 Answers 3

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4

I don't. Mostly because I'm lazy, but I think it also serves as some extra nutrients for the yeast.

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4
  • Could you elaborate on what nutrients it provides?
    – Denny Conn
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 17:39
  • I don't actually know. It may be something I heard, or something that I misheard and filled in the blanks with bad info. I was just listening to some Brew Strong archives a couple of hours ago, and in the Head Retention episode, McDole mentioned that he got better head retention when he didn't skim. I may have just projected from that.
    – baka
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 20:32
  • I'd guess that's due to not removing proteins from the beer by skimming rather than "yeast nutrition".
    – Denny Conn
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 21:36
  • byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/13-boiling/… "... cold break contains some unsaturated fatty acids required for yeast nutrition" Does hot break contain any of those things?
    – baka
    Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 22:52
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I tried doing it for a couple years. I found it made no difference whatsoever to the beer quality so now I don't bother. The only valid reason I've heard for doing it is to help prevent boilovers on small kettles, but I find Fermcap far more effective for that.

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1
  • That's right point - i have 29L kettle and 27L of wort easily boils off if i don't remove them before hop addition.
    – zgoda
    Commented Jun 7, 2011 at 7:40
1

Palmer recommends throwing a couple of copper pennies into the pot to prevent boilover.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1-1.html

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