so i’m an extract/partial mash and partial boil brewer with several batches under my belt. i just about have my process dialed in with all of my new gadgets, primary among them being my immersion chiller. i’ve also been reading about how extract brewers should put half of their extract in at the beginning of the boil, and the other half in the last 15mins or so to avoid a lot of kettle carmelization.
all that being said, does it become a problem to interrupt the boil? by the time i drop in my IC and add another 3ish pounds of extract, my wort temp has dropped 15-20 degrees. should i return it to boiling before i continue my hop timers? or just continue on business as usual?
i just sanitize my immersion chiller in my bucket of star san and then add it to the kettle after the boil is finished. this may help you.
also i added last extract all the time and just left the boil going but made sure to have a stirring device in the kettle and stir as i added. i never seemed to have a problem when i did extract brews.
If it drops the temp enough to cause a significant delay before you get back to a boil, the I’d wait until you get back to a boil before restarting the timer on your hop additions.
so my last batch went something like this: steep specialty grains; rinse; and half of the extract; begin boiling; add 1st hop addition; after 45mins remove kettle from heat; remove hop sack from kettle; add remainder of extract, irish moss, and IC; return kettle to heat; once boil has resumed, return hop sack to kettle and add remaining hop additions as appropriate.
Wont only adding half of the extract at the beginning of of your boil throw your hop bitterness off drastically? i was under the impression that extract brewing required something like 3* the hops because of sugar concentration during the boil. Do you adjust for this or does it just work itself out?
Yes, theoretically you’ll get slightly better hop utilization with the less concentrated wort. But it’s probably not enough of a difference that you need to re-calculate.
That’s the point of putting in half the extract later – lower the sugar concentration during the boil to “normal” levels so that hop utilization occurs at the same rate as it would with a full volume boil.
just make sure no extract gets boiled less than ten minutes. Get a little of the extract in at the beginnig, but otherwise wait for the rest.
Try to boil as much as you can or all of the wort if possible. That’s as big a deal or bigger than whether all of your extract gets boiled sixty minutes.
Extract beers can come out damn excellent. Full boil and fermentation temperatures probably being the biggest factors.
I’d disagree to some extent. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a concentrated boil - that’s how the lightest, cleanest-tasting beers in the world are brewed. I think the key is to keep the kettle gravity within the normal beer range. If you’re boiling at 50°P or something, it’s reasonable to expect that the result won’t be very beer-like.
. . . hop utilization, color development, melanoidin formation, and whatever other mojo happens in the boil. The concept is to provide boil conditions that mimic a full volume boil as closely as possible.
I haven’t found a brilliant way to do the late extract additions. I’ve found that it’s possible to maintain the boil if you add extract a little at a time near the end. Like adding LME slowly, stirring constantly over the last 10-15 minutes. Too much work for me, and I worry about scorching. Same with DME which seems to have less temperature impact, but it clumps like crazy, so lots of stirring, aka work.
I’d suggest whatever feels best to you, and to repeat the same thing for a few batches. Then if you think you’re consistently not getting enuf hop goodness (or too much), adjust up (or down) until you find a sweet spot for your process.
Personally, I do mostly malt forward beers that don’t have big hop charges at the end. I add flameout hops (if there are any), add extract, and go to cooling. On the few occasions I use a bunch of late addition hops, I’ll add extract, bring back to boil, add flameout hops, cool. Both ways seem to work ok.
What would be the problem with waiting until you turn the flame off completely and then adding the extract? Your hops are done boiling and the extract will start the chilling process. Even if it drops 15-20 degrees, that is well above pasteurization temps.
0 min hops? Before, during, or after the extract add? If before, how long until they’re removed, then the extract added. If during they’re in the way, a PITA. After they’re (allegedly) cheated 20 degrees worth of hop oil extraction and (possibly) some extraction time. So if after, return to boil first?. Relax, etc, etc?
Often I add extract at the end of the boil and have calculated the hop utilization accordingly. It’s a great way to stretch your hop utilization. Also, the wort chiller gets sanitized and dropped in after flameout. Nothing to worry about.
When doing any sort of extract addition during the boil it is just as easy to turn the heat down or off to avoid scorching. Also, adding extract at flameout works really well as Tom suggests.