Happy New Year’s all.
I need to get back brewing, work has been a problem but I’m going to use my time off this week to make some beer. I wasn’t sure if this would go in ingredients or recipe but here it is.
My question:
I want to make a pale ale (4.5 to 5.5% abv) and load it up with late hop additions only, no bittering hops, or very few. Do I need to do a 1 hr boil as I normally would in order to drive off DMS or other flavour compounds? The base malt will be a blend of Maris Otter and Munich because that’s what I have on hand. Hops will be a combination of citra, simcoe and centennial (or cascade depending on which I have more of). I’m thinking of a 15 min addition, 5 min and/or entirely flameout. Or just a huge flameout with a long hop stand.
So do I need to boil for a whole hour or can I save myself some time and gas and get away with less boiling time?
Thanks.
I think you would want to add at least a small addition of hops to the beginning of the boil. You will also want a full 60 minute boil to get all the proteins to coagulate and drive off all unwanted compounds.
The boil does more than drive off the DMS, so 60 minutes minimum boil for me. I do a Cream Ale now and then where all hops are added after flame out and whirlpooled for 45 minutes. This just uses Mt. Hood so the AA is not too high, but the beer end up having appropriate bitterness. I estimated a 12% utilization from what I can find on the net, and it seems to be about right.
Using higher AA hops will give a nice APA, with plenty of bitterness.
Thanks guys.
Jeff, I’ve been lurking a bit here and there but yeah, I’ve been away for a while and I haven’t brewed much either. Need to get re-motivated!!!
I think 45 minutes is probably good enough. Or try 30 minutes as an even better experiment. I bet you can save a good chunk of time with no ill effects. Go for it I say.
I fooled around with a 45 minute boil a couple months ago for medium to low gravity beers. I added more bittering hops to make up for less utilization. I didn’t get any off flavors but I did have a hard time dialing in the amount of bittering hops. I put more in then I needed. IIRC I put in 1.5X what I normally would and that was too much. Also, if your following a recipe or not using brewing software remember to take into account less boil off.
Welcome back. I seem to remember that you are a good resource for us barley growers.
For an extract beer you can get away with a very short boil. I generally only boil for 15 minutes for my extract beers. But, as the others have mentioned, for an all-grain brew you have things like protein coagulation and driving off DMS precursors to deal with. Still, if all your base malts are more highly kilned, you may be able to shorten your boil without having to worry about DMS.
I recently did a pale ale with no hops till 15 minutes and it was nice. With marris otter and munich your DMS precursors are going to be extremely minimal (virtually 0 with munich) so you might be able to get away with a 30 or even 15 minute boil.
I’ve done several hop bursted beers (all hops 15-0) and a few all hopstand hopped beers and liked them all. Obviously you need to account for your target IBUs. The all hopstand beers have a smooth FWH-type bitterness to me, with the bitterness all coming in the steep.
i’d still do at least 45-60 min boil… you could do the same to the mash to save about 30 min total…
i’ve been playing around with doing a whirlpool only hop addition w/ 5 or 6 oz… 20 min whirlpool see what happens…
Good nuff. Do you hop stand/whirlpool with the lid on or off and do you have a max time? I’m assuming you’d want the lid on to keep in heat unless you are recirculating and using temp control and intermittent fire.
I have done lid on and lid off, no difference as far as I can tell. The temp is allowed to drop, but for a 10 gallon batch it does not drop too much as far as i am concerned.
We do our WP with the lid off. Recipe dictates the times but usually we don’t WP for more than 20 min. So w/ lid off and WP we don’t lose much temp. Is there a max time… Not sure but more than 30 mins seems excessive IMO.
For me, I stand 20 mins for APA, 30-40 for AIPA/IIPA. The thing is, I’m sure you’re achieving a much stronger whirlpool (and thereby getting quicker, more efficient extraction) than I can stirring by hand. But I agree that there’s a point of diminishing returns and I don’t get a lot of benefit past these times.