ETOHonboard

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I am just curious to know if how hard you boil affects the taste of a beer?

Deuce

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I guess you could scorch your wort if your boiling to hard, or lose to much due to evaporation, which would affect taste.

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Diverse Haus Brewery

Teromous

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Supposedly doing a hard boil gets rid of things like sulfurs from the hops and chemicals like chlorine, chloramine, etc, from your water. I'm not a chemist, but it's what I've read. Doing a hard boil will also develop hot break protein coagulation. This will make your beer less cloudy, but I'm not sure if you will taste a difference from this alone.

scottland

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Not really. As long as it's boiling it's fine. Your evaporation rate due to the stronger boil will have a greater effect, as it will make for a higher gravity beer. The flavor difference is pretty much nil if you account for the evaporation.

(that was the simplified answer: Yes i know that hard boils increase hop isomerisation, hot break development, melanoidin development, DMS reduction, and all that other crap. But the difference just isn't that big when you're talking about a 5-10 gallon batch)

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ETOHonboard

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Awsome guys! I am trying to fine tune my process. My vigorous boil caused more evaporation than I was planning but I started to wonder if it could affect the taste. Apparently the evaporation rate seems to be the only downfall.
Thanks again!

theDeutscher

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I've been looking into the same topic for a couple weeks now. With my system, I do 5 gallon all-grain batches, but have to do two separate 2.5 gallon batches and combine them at the end to get 5 gallons. I was having a problem with an extreme maltiness in my brews. I first thought it was DMS or under-hopping, but eliminated any flaws in my process that could have made that possible. I finally read something about Charlie Papazian saying that any brew he tries that has had a boiloff greater than 15% has an odd over-malty flavor. It sounded a lot like the problem I was having. Doing 2.5 gallon batches, I was only boiling 3/4 of a gallon so I was going from 3.25 gallons down to 2.5 gallons. This amount of boiloff wouldn't be a problem for 5 gallons, but boiling that amount down to 2.5 gallons meant that I was boiling off 23%. I can personally attest that after I turned down the boil, I no longer have that problem. I was creating too many melanoidins and carmelization. All you need is to see movement or turning on the surface of your boil. The water doesn't have to be leaping out of the pot. I cut my boil volume in half and now just get a nice gental boil. Making very consistent brews now.