2323

Recipes 

Hello, I ended up boiling my wort from 6.5 to 4.5 gallons over 80 minutes. What impact will this have on the finisheded product? I added half a gallon of bottled spring water to the cooled wort to compensate for the volume boiled off. Did I make a big mistake by adding and/or not boiling the water addition?

Thanks!
Steve

GreenwoodRover

Recipes 

You shouldn't have any concerns about the bottled spring water as long as it was from a new unopened bottle. When I was doing partial boils I always topped up with spring water and still made some pretty good beer.

The other concern was was the recipe planned for a 60 min boil in terms of your hop addidions? If so and you didnt adjust your bitterness might be off (more bitter)

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TexLaw

Recipes 

Assuming you made your hop additions based on an 80 minute boil, you should see little effect to your finished beer. I might be a little darker, but that's it.

You did not make a big mistake by adding the water, even if you did not boil it. True, there could be some nasties in that water, but they probably will not get a foothold on your wort, especially if you made a starter. Since you only added a half gallon, you probably do not have to worry about chlorine or chloramines in the water. Next time, though, it is a better practice to boil the water and, if necessary, treat for chloramines (campden tablets work fine here).


TL

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TexLaw

Recipes 

I meant to explain this one a little more. You will see hardly any difference between boiling hops for 60 minutes and boiling them for 80. However, if you extended your boil after adding flavor or aroma hops, you will not get as much flavor or aroma, and you will get more bitterness.


TL

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2323

Recipes 

Thank you for your replies! I added my last two hop additions with 15 and 5 minutes remaining in the boil.

I pitched the yeast exactly 12 hours ago @ 70 degrees in a plastic bucket and now I'm just hoping to see some activity soon.

david_42

Recipes 

Since the flavor & aroma adds were timed right, you probably won't notice much, if any, difference in bittering. The utilization difference is only 5 percent or so.

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BierMuncher

Recipes 

Everything sounds fine. Fermentation can take as long as 36 hours sometimes. Other times it can be completed in that time.

I do 75 - 80 minute boils on all my beers and 90+ on anything using pilsner malt.

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cee3

Recipes 

Can you explain why the extra boiling time for pilsner malt? Thanks.

EvilTOJ

Recipes 

there's more DMS in pilsner malt, so you want to make sure you boil that off so you miss out on the yummy cooked cabbage smell in your wort.

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Stevorino

Recipes 

Longer Boils = good. It drives off DMS (which is really only acceptable in a couple of styles like Cream Ale). It CAN darken your wort a bit, but increased melanoids and darkening comes more from an overly aggressive boil than a long boil.

If you went nuts on your boiling AND hit it for 80 minutes, you probably lost some volume, gained some color, and (assuming you left it uncovered), drove off the majority of your DMS (half life of 45 minutes-- drives off 100% at 90 minutes in theory).

If you use a whirlpool chiller then some of what I just said doesn't apply regarding DMS.

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