Hello fellow homebrewers!
I’m planning on brewing a Blue Corn Cream Ale this weekend with Blue Corn Grits. Recipe calls for 84% Base Malt of 4 lbs. 2 Row and 4 lbs. Pilsner. I’ve always been told that when brewing with Pilsner Malt, 90 boil is need to get rid of that DMS. My question is, being that it’s only 4lbs, is 90 min boil really needed. I’m also worried that the wort will become too caramelized and malty due to the 90 min. boil. I appreciate anyone’s help and advice.
Pretty sure it’s been recently discussed and some are having no issues with only a 60 minute boil. I have used both 60&90 for my all pilsner pilsner and have not noticed any difference between them, although not tested side by side. I say give the 60 a shot and find out
A rolling boil for 60 minutes will be fine.
My Belgian ales use 80% pils malt and I’ve never had any issues.
Blue corn sounds interesting. Does it contribute any color ?
I brew beers with 100% pilsner base and boil for 60 minutes with 10% boil off rate and never have had issues with DMS.
Bear in mind that DMS is allowable in cream ales and a small amount is almost expected. DMS is a bigger deal in lagers because of colder fermentation. => 60 minutes should be fine.
Yes it does! I’ve made a blue corn lager and it had a purplish hue to it. I get it locally from one of the pueblos here in Albuquerque. Milled and all!
60 Min boil it is! I’m really appreciating everyone’s feedback on this.
You’re welcome Doggy.
Maybe in your next Blue Corn cream ale you can add some Hatch chile. 
I love Green Chili…just not in beer lol.
Agreed. Each his own.
A significant drawback from a longer or more vigorous boil, is the production of thiobarbituric acid in the wort. That is a staling/oxidation precursor and it does make the resulting beer more prone to early staling. As mentioned above, it has largely been found that a 60 min boil is sufficient for avoiding DMS effects, even when using Pils malt. Don’t worry too much about having a lot of boil vigor either. Having about 8 to 10 percent volume reduction during the boil is what the Pro’s typically see and we homebrewers should target that too. Cover your kettle to a large degree and open it up at the last 5 min of the boil to assure the DMS is vented.
Tangent…do you need to boil at all? I’ve been talking to a guy who has done several no boil batches in styles you wouldn’t suspect. He sent me this recently…
OK we had our monthly meeting last night and the RAW beer was very well received… people could not believe that it never was boiled. A few members are BJCP judges and one is a national ranked judge and they all found no off flavors and thought it was a good example of NEIPA.
I lnow you love questioning brewing conventions, maybe you could work up a Experimental Brewing episode on the subject… I posted a witeup on Glen Ridge Homebrewers FB page
I’ve had some raw ales as well, and while some have had some subtley strange flavor component I couldn’t nail down. I wasn’t sure if it was just a higher protein content due to no hot/cold break, or if it was some dms just above threshold…
How did he get the necessary bitterness? Did he use a hop tea or a >180F non-boil whirlpool?
If you didn’t need to boil why would the pro’s not be all over this??? The energy saving alone would be quite substantial, not to mention none of the pro brewing books or courses talk about that… I don’t buy it. Not to say you can’t make “beer” without boiling, but…
I think the answer is “maybe”. A lot of stuff we do is out of habit and “best practices” but not really based on thorough scientific testing. (I’m reminded of the long-standing belief that HSA wasn’t “a thing”.) Some styles may work with no boil (like an over-hopped quadruple IPA that melts your palate) and for others not so much. I suspect the pros aren’t all over this because of a lack of testing and are thus unwilling to try it at this time.
Come on, man. You’ve spent a lot of effort probing people to be curious about low-oxygen (for which I am grateful), so why not be curious about this? 
Because low oxygen is ALL OVER professional literature and coursework. Not boiling isn’t
That was my question - the effects on the beer of the excess proteins/no hot or cold break. Interesting.
I have definitely performed some no-boil berliner weisse’s before with a mash hop that have turned out fantastic with no ill issues and placing well in comps. I have not done this with a non-soured beer though.
Because we don’t need no stinking pros telling us what to do?
He uses a Grainfather. After mash and sparge he raises the temp to 170 and does a large whirlpool addition.