30 minute pre-boil without hops

BOBTHEukBREWER · 11-30-2010, 03:33 PM

Reading a recent thread on boil time, I have decided my next standard brew will be boiled for 30 minutes without hops, and then double quantities of hops added at 30, 15 and 5 minutes, will give feedback in due course.

**pearlbeer** · 11-30-2010, 03:43 PM

Depends on the style, I guess. I recently made a BelinerWiesse that had a 15m boil.

Two things you will lose for sure:

1) Bitterness - not as much AA will be extracted from your bittering hops, so your IBUs will drop
2) Color - you wort will not 'caramelize' as much. The color will not be as deep, and flavor might be affect a bit

One major item to account for:

Your wort won't be as concentrated, so your OG could be significant affected if you don't account for the shorter boil time.

If you are looking for bigger hop flavor and aroma, I'd suggest testing late hop additions. Great article here: http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

I recently made the Evil Dead Red and it is awesome.

**motobrewer** · 11-30-2010, 03:46 PM

hopbursting?

**AnOldUR** · 11-30-2010, 03:50 PM

pearlbeer, I think you missed that he's still doing a 60 minute boil with the first hop addition at 30 minutes.

Did this in a recent Chinook / Willamette Pale Ale except first addition at 40 minutes. Very pleased! The bitterness was less harsh than full boil hopping with the same IBU's.

edit:
This turned out to be my wife's new favorite beer. Hope to brew it again this weekend.
Kicked the keg on Thanksgiving!

worth · 11-30-2010, 07:32 PM

Wa thinking about trying this on my next batch as well after reading about hop bursting. Please update how it goes.

drummstikk · 02-06-2012, 09:54 PM

Any update?

I would mostly be concerned about the clarity of the finished beer, if anything. Hot break occurs when tannins meet up with proteins and precipitate. Most tannins come from grain husks, with a small contribution coming from bittering hops. If you take away bittering hops, it may have some small effect on hot break formation, but I would assume it is negligible compared to the effect of contact with grain husks during mashing/sparging/decoction.

acefaser · 02-06-2012, 10:34 PM

Did this with my last clone of Bee Cave Haus Pale Ale. I read a lot about it and just changed the additions and amounts to later in the boil and kept the bitterness the same with Beersmith and it turned out fantastic. I will be doing more late hop additions in the future.