Even before publishing the first boil length xBmt, I’d been anticipating repeating it with a mostly Pilsner malt wort. I was finally able to accomplish it without screwing up. exBEERiment results are in, check it out!
Nice write up Marshall. Seems to make sense, but still surprising that with an hour difference in boil time, there was hardly any noticeable difference between the beers, especially in an opaque cup
Yeah, I figured there’d be a difference in flavor other than DMS just based on the boil length, but nope. I still have both on tap and have yet to be able to tell them apart when served blind.
Funny… I just ran a little experiment myself on my last cream ale, which was brewed as part of a club competition where there were like 10-12 entries of all cream ales. For my experiment, I purposely tried to get DMS into the beer by using pilsner malt as the base, also used flaked corn, doing a very weak boil (not vigorous like normal), putting a lid on the boil kettle, and only boiling 45 minutes.
Results:
Out of 10-12 entries, my beer brewed with this technique was the ONLY one with DMS.
Which variable was the primary cause? Well I don’t know, but I would theorize it was somewhere between the very weak boil and the lid on the kettle. Did the pilsner malt and flaked corn contribute? Don’t know. Maybe? Did the short 45 minute boil contribute? Personally I don’t think so. Just hunches right now. But there is certainly more experimentation that can be done in this area, because when I purposely used all the variables at once that could cause DMS, I did get it. But it’s not real strong. It’s there, but not out of style crazy creamed corn weirdness. It’s just there in the background, playing a supporting role in my cream ale as per the style.
i’ve never used flaked corn- does it give some degree of cream corn taste regardless of boil length and lid on?
All I get out of flaked maize ( I use it in my cream ales) boiled 60 is a subtle corn sweetness. No cream corn Rolling Rock-iness.
I haven’t used it enough to give you any good answer. I think maybe it helps, which is why it was in there, but I can’t say for sure or how much.
Thanks, Marshall! You just got me 30-60 minutes of my life back on every AG brewday. ;D
Cheers! Just don’t blame me if you end up making a DMS bomb [emoji12]
60 minute boil for everything might just be the way to go for me…still saves me 1/2 hr on great deal of my brews.
Fantastic. I boiled my last helles for only 60 minutes and didn’t notice anything different from past helles beers boiled for 90 minutes. Nice to not have to worry about having a higher preboil volume to account for the longer boil.
You think boil strength would play a large role in reducing DMS?
Yep, I’m up for giving it a try. I always boiled 90 with pils because it was the conventional wisdom. But so was using secondary for everything, yeast washing, not adding sugar or you’d get cidery flavors, etc…;) Saving 30 minutes is an appealing idea.
Only surprising if you fall for the “conventional wisdom”. Not surprising if you’ve ever done it!
I think open kettle and vigorous boil are the key elements here. Stands to reason our small set ups have a lot more surface area exposure during the boil to let the volatile components escape. The only reason I use extended boil times with Pils malt is to get the color I want. If you’re not decocting, and you’re not adding something to adjust the color, it’s going to be pretty darn light.
Anyway, great timing on your article Marshall. We’ve got a Pils study group going right now and boil time is one of the issues we’ve been discussing.
I understand what you are saying Denny, but I think it would be easier for me to see or expect no noticeable changes if the time difference was a mere 30 minutes (standard 60 minutes vs 90 minutes.) I still think a 60 minute difference in boil time should produce significantly different beers from a scientific point of view, not conventional wisdom. An egg boiled for 12 minutes and an egg boiled for 36 minutes are both still hard boiled, but will differences be noted? Applying a boil to something for 30 minutes or 90 should yield different results whether cooking or brewing. I am not saying that DMS will be the difference, but hop utilization and isomerization should at least be different between them, no? The results showed slight differences in color, I simply think more differences would have been seen. I am glad that was not the case, and I may start some shorter boils on some of my brew days to see for myself. I think I’m just rambling at this point. I don’t have the personal experience to back any of this up; it just seems logical that “x” minutes of boiling would be different than 3x “x” minutes. And now back to your regularly scheduled programming
Ohhh, I look forward to reading about the outcomes of this study group!
I’m not sure boiling eggs and making beer equalte to each other…
I’ve been doing 60 minute boils with the lid mostly on the pot for about 10 years and never noticed DMS.
In this experiment, the hops were boiled for the same length of time in each, so no significant differences should be noted.
Unless I’m specifically looking for a character that is imparted through a lengthy boil (concentrating a barleywine wort, for example), I’m going to start using shortened boils and see what happens.