late addition malt extract

What is the benefit of adding a portion of your malt extract later in the boil?

A shorter boil on your light extract will keep it from developing any darker of color. I usually add a little up front, then hold the rest until the last 10 minutes of the boil.

that is what I do. about 1/3 at the start of boil and rest at flame out. Helps for lighter beers to stay light

When I do AE, I use 1lb extract per gallon of water or thereabouts. The rest goes in at flame out. Since the beer is still boiling hot, & pasteurization happens in seconds @ 160F, bob's your uncle. Lighter color & cleaner flavor will result.

Also improves hop utilization. The lower gravity boil benefits extraction of bittering and flavour/ aroma compounds. If you use a recipe program, like Brewers friend, you will notice that your IBU will change with the size of boil... If you are doing partial high gravity boils then you will improve hop utilization by adding extract late.


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Yeah, I think after topping off & all is said & done, the hops used do their job very well.

Yup - I've been doing this lately with the lighter colored beers. Seems to help keep 'em the color you'd expect 'em to be.

Is the primary benefit the color? I thought that I had seen someone else mentioning something about flavor improvement with late extract additions?

Also, for those of you that do the late addition, do you still have to deal with the hot break foam up or since the water is already boiling, does that get bypassed?

Both notions have been disproven fellas. Hop utilization is not dependent on boil gravity, except for the super-saturation of hop oils if you're going for >100 IBU type beers. Also, wort darkening from early extract additions is also untrue. The boil isn't hot enough to caramelize the sugars. That being said, there's nothing wrong with either practice. I add extract at flameout. It helps cool the wort!

I am definitely still pretty careful with the extract addition when I do it late. And, yes, I guess the hops are more utilized or something during late extract addition. I don't remember the exact science or terminology, but that's what I've read.

Weezy said:

Both notions have been disproven fellas. Hop utilization is not dependent on boil gravity, except for the super-saturation of hop oils if you're going for >100 IBU type beers. Also, wort darkening from early extract additions is also untrue. The boil isn't hot enough to caramelize the sugars. That being said, there's nothing wrong with either practice. I add extract at flameout. It helps cool the wort!

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Wort darkening is very true indeed, especially with LME moreso than DME. It's called a Maillard reaction, or browning in the case of food. In this instance, caramelization. It's not just a function of heat, but of time. Ever make caramel on the stove with sugar & water? Same thing here.

Maillard reactions aren't hot enough to carmelize. Wort darkens...ALL wort darkens, be it LME, DME, AG....due to concentrating the wort due to the boil off of water.

I don't think it's so much boil off, but it is an interesting thought. We make caramel on the stove top, so it doesn't have to be several hundred degrees or anything.

unionrdr said:

I don't think it's so much boil off, but it is an interesting thought. We make caramel on the stove top, so it doesn't have to be several hundred degrees or anything.

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Cooking temps are much higher than boiling, my friend. A quick Google search shows the temps necessary to caramelized sugars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramelization#Effects_on_caramelization

Caramelization temperatures

Sugar Temperature

Fructose 110°C, 230°F
Galactose 160°C, 320°F
Glucose 160°C, 320°F
Sucrose 160°C, 320°F
Maltose 180°C, 356°

Weezy said:

Both notions have been disproven fellas. Hop utilization is not dependent on boil gravity, except for the super-saturation of hop oils if you're going for >100 IBU type beers.

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What's the science behind that? I hear conflicting claims, but I haven't seen any research either way. Lots of brewing books, articles, Brewing community WOMs, and most of the hop utilization formulas claim gravity of the wort affects hop utilization.

I know Yooper claims it doesn't matter, so you're not the only trusted figure saying that. I'm just confused and need someone to explain it to me using small words is I can understand.

The equations, especially Tinseth which is heavily influenced by gravity, were created working backwards from empirical data. MY own experience agrees with that. I just did a 2 gal batch for a quick lambic using 1# pils dme and 1# wheat dme. i boiled the hops in water for 30 min. no malt. it was this aromatic tea looking thing, and I throw in the DME at flameout, stirred, chilled. Explain it in simple words? Hmm. What makes anyone think that malt must be present for isomerization to take place? Hydration extracts the oils. Heat is all that's necessary to transform the acids. Hop isomerization is so inefficient of a process with yields that can be extremely low (<30%) that wort density is such a small factor. Papers I've seen studying hop AA isomerization were done in pH buffered water solutions...no wort.

John Palmer has stated on several occasions that wort density doesn't matter.

You see people talk about a 60 IBU beer where the IBUs all come from big doses of late hops being "smoother" than 60-min hop IBUs. This always strikes me as odd. If its smoother then its not as bitter, and therefore should have a lower IBU number. What they're really saying is that the equations say both beers are 60 IBUs, which they can't be the same, by simple inspection with your tongue! More evidence that the equations are flawed. If someone wants to argue that there's different kinds of bitterness, then the equations are even less useful.

Anyway, I'll try to dig up references on the subject again. I always say to learn to use your taste buds to get a feel for what 20 ibus tastes like, 40 ibus, 60 ibus vs. Whatever equation your using. Then you can use those equations better, to better results. They're still the best tool we have.

I also like the bitterness to gravity ratio a lot, which I believe is a better way to relate IBUs to gravity for a given beer style.

Weezy said:

Both notions have been disproven fellas. Hop utilization is not dependent on boil gravity, except for the super-saturation of hop oils if you're going for >100 IBU type beers. Also, wort darkening from early extract additions is also untrue. The boil isn't hot enough to caramelize the sugars. That being said, there's nothing wrong with either practice. I add extract at flameout. It helps cool the wort!

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Actually, maillard reactions aren't the same as caramelization. They do occur in the boil. That has been proven. Caramelization, though, does not. As to the discussion of stove top caramel, that does occur at hotter than 212, but you can make candi sugar with inverted syrup and an addition of nitrogen to get rich, dark sugars that are distinctly different. That is more akin to what happens in the boil. The idea of kettle caramelization is a misnomer. Check out Mallett's Malt book on this. It extends to extract as well.

Thanks weezy. I appreciate the detailed explanation. I would appreciate any references for further reading.

I agree that the common equations aren't terribly accurate. You get wildly different results from the same recipe depending on which formula you use. That means one, or all, of them is incorrect. I do exactly what you suggested; use them to establish consistency in my process and recipe formulation.

So just to be clear, are you saying that wort gravity theoretically makes a difference, but it's just the difference is so small as to be inconsequential on the homebrew scale? Or a you saying it doesn't even factor in one bit?

Weezy said:

Both notions have been disproven fellas. Hop utilization is not dependent on boil gravity, except for the super-saturation of hop oils if you're going for >100 IBU type beers.

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This cut & paste from a previous post might be of interest:
...recent references from BYO, Glenn Tinseth, and others who are highly qualified on the subject are also in disagreement. Here are some examples:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Hop_utilization (On website today - impact)
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/basic-brewing-radio/id75092679 (2008 - No direct effect, but relationship)
http://hw.libsyn.com/p/3/0/4/30433c...31834041&hwt=a1babd357d2d091bbf481fb8c715d1b4 (2008 - Affect, but lower magnitude)
http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2011/02/10/beer-bitterness-and-ibus-with-glenn-tinseth-bshb-podcast-9/ (2011 - no direct affect, but strong correlation)

e-mail from Glenn Tinseth in 2012: “There is really no question about whether alpha acid utilization is related to wort gravity.”
http://beersmith.com/blog/2012/02/2...-beers-with-john-palmer-beersmith-podcast-33/ (2012 – Correlation, but not due to solubility)
http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/37-hops/867-how-can-i-get-better-hop-utilization (2012 - Correlation)
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=basic-brewing-radio-2010 (2010 – No correlation)
http://realbeer.com/hops/FAQ.html#units (2013 on website today - Correlation)

Iirc carmelization is a type of maillard reaction. It does occur and does contribute color but it happens at very low amounts in a conventional boil. Just as in carmelization of sugar on the stove top, water content must be low for the carmelization to really go. Its the same for the lower temp maillard reactions. I believe wort pH also inhibits these reactions. The vast majority of darkening is simply due to the concentrating of the wort by boiling off water.

schokie said:

So just to be clear, are you saying that wort gravity theoretically makes a difference, but it's just the difference is so small as to be inconsequential on the homebrew scale? Or a you saying it doesn't even factor in one bit?

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The former. Its like maillard reaction....it happens but not enough to worry about.

Weezy said:

You see people talk about a 60 IBU beer where the IBUs all come from big doses of late hops being "smoother" than 60-min hop IBUs. This always strikes me as odd. If its smoother then its not as bitter, and therefore should have a lower IBU number. What they're really saying is that the equations say both beers are 60 IBUs, which they can't be the same, by simple inspection with your tongue! More evidence that the equations are flawed. If someone wants to argue that there's different kinds of bitterness, then the equations are even less useful.

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Actual bitterness and perceived bitterness are very different. A boil start IBU of 68 will come off as drastically different vs. a boil start IBU of 23, with the 10 minute and hopstand additions taking care of the rest (even if both beers end up with the same final IBUs).

Perceived bitterness can come from excess tannins, stale ingredients, long dryhop times, poor yeast practices, poor hop selections, an imbalanced recipe, etc.

Example 1:

10# 2-Row
1# White Wheat
1/2# C-20
1/2# Corn Sugar

68 IBUs

1.00 oz. Apollo 20% @ 60 minutes
2.00 oz. Centennial sub 165 Hopstand (no isomerization)
2.00 oz. Cascade sub 165F Hopstand (no isomerization)
2.00 oz. Centennial 14 Day Dryhop
2.00 oz. Amarillo 14 Day Dryhop

Example 2:

68 IBUs

0.33 oz. Apollo 20% @ 60 minutes
2.00 oz. Centennial 10% @ 10 minutes
2.00 oz. Cascade 7% @ 180F Hopstand (10% Utilization)
0.33 oz. Apollo @ sub 165 F Hopstand (no isomerization)
2.00 oz. Centennial 5 Day Dryhop
2.00 oz. Amarillo 5 Day Dryhop
0.33 oz. Apollo 5 Day Dryhop

^ Same amount of IBUs, same amount of hops, same type of hops, very similar hop bills, yet Example 2 will come off as less bitter. You will sense more juicy-ness as a result of having more beneficial hop compounds/oils. And that juicy-ness is perceived as slightly sweeter.

Thanks for proving my point. If those two beers test at the same IBU number, then the equations have little value since the perceived tastes are vastly different. If they don't test at the same IBU level, then the equations are equally less useful since they're not giving you an accurate number for the late hops.

Look, its ok if its not accurate. Its just a tool. IBU is just a number. And its a tool were applying a big fudge factor to try to model big, late addition hops, which they were never intended to characterize. We're not really gauging late hops by the IBUs anyways. You're doing the same as everyone else. You're using nice round hop weights. You're not targeting an exact IBU number with the late hop quantities. You're using a weight that you read someone else use or that you've used and liked, regardless of AA% of the hop.

"perceived bitterness"??? Perception is e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

I've got buddies who are old school IPA fans, which are fizzy yellow beers withh tons of hop bite. You can't tell them that your 21g/gallon whirlpool addition is 80 IBUs. They don't taste it. If they bought a bottle of a beer that said 80 IBUs on the label and all they got was a burst of citrus fruit, they'd be pissed.

I know this is off the bitterness topic, but it does relate to the caramelization aspect. Also, this is not a scientific study, just experiential
observation.

When I first started brewing my first 5 batches I used LME. I used 100% of it for the entire 60 min boil and I was doing partial boils. As you all know this translates into boiling a very thick wort for a long time. I never made the connection back then, but as I was drinking my beers at the time (5 years ago) I, and several others, noticed that they all had this caramel quality to them. It wasn't overwhelming and in some styles (an ESB I brewed comes to mind) It was pleasant and desirable. In others it was not so.

I went to AG for a while and then went back to extract b/c of some of the PITA things about AG and the fact I am living in a small apartment. I did more research this time and went with DME and started putting 2/3 in for the last 10 min. None of my beers had that caramel note to them unless I actually used crystal malt and even then it was not the same type of caramel flavor.

My thought is this: If kettle caramelization doesn't exist, what explains the above experience? This is an experience I have heard shared by many. Also, what about the kettle caramelized Scotch Ale recipes out there? There certainly seems to be a noticeable effect in such situations as well.

Again, I don't know the science and I'm certainly willing to be proved wrong but the empirical evidence certainly seems to support it. I agree that it might not happen to as huge of an extent as some people think, but it certainly seems to exist to some degree.

My speculation is that the increased caramelization you noted was due to poor mixing of the LME, which led to the extract sinking to the bottom of the kettle and getting scorched. I have that problem with LME, but DME clumps and floats on top until I get it completely mixed.

The kettle scorching is a totally different situation that caramelization during the boil from heat of the wort.

There are so many factors that could have impacted malt character given your example. But, high gravity boiling for long periods will lead to more Maillard reactions, absolutely.

Weezy said:

Thanks for proving my point. If those two beers test at the same IBU number, then the equations have little value since the perceived tastes are vastly different. If they don't test at the same IBU level, then the equations are equally less useful since they're not giving you an accurate number for the late hops.

Look, its ok if its not accurate. Its just a tool. IBU is just a number. And its a tool were applying a big fudge factor to try to model big, late addition hops, which they were never intended to characterize. We're not really gauging late hops by the IBUs anyways. You're doing the same as everyone else. You're using nice round hop weights. You're not targeting an exact IBU number with the late hop quantities. You're using a weight that you read someone else use or that you've used and liked, regardless of AA% of the hop.

"perceived bitterness"??? Perception is e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

I've got buddies who are old school IPA fans, which are fizzy yellow beers withh tons of hop bite. You can't tell them that your 21g/gallon whirlpool addition is 80 IBUs. They don't taste it. If they bought a bottle of a beer that said 80 IBUs on the label and all they got was a burst of citrus fruit, they'd be pissed.

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The definition of IBU is flawed. It assumes that the only detectable bitterness in a beer should only be from the length that a hop was boiled to release it's potential alpha acids. The people who believe this definition at face value will not accept that there could be something else at play here. This is highly ignorant, as you know.

When a homebrewer does it right, they know how to position their early bittering IBU contributions with consideration for their flavor/aroma contributions as well.

So Weezy has done what I'm going to ask. Steven Deeds' 15 minute brewing perfects the hop tea method.

Why do we add any LME or DME at the beginning? Is anyone adding all extract near the end?

subscribed...

From my understanding you need it to change the ph of your wort in order to isomerize the alpha acids of the hops. In other words; just boiling hops in water will not extract the bitterness or flavors we are looking for.

Afraid I don't know the proper method in this forum to quote from one of the articles, but https://www.homebrewtalk.com/bittering-hops-in-15-minutes.html indicates wort lowers the pH, which reduces your alpha-acid utilization.

That makes perfect sense. It's easier to get more acid into a more basic solution.

Hop Bitter Acid Isomerization and Degradation Kinetics in a Model Wort-Boiling System

Of the factors tested (glucose at 100 Plato, maltose at 100 Plato, calcium at 100 ppm, and pH ranging from 4.8 to 6.0) none were shown to affect the rate of production of iso-alpha acids. While pH had a marked effect on the concentrations of alpha acids as measured, the differences may be attributed to solubility issues (as the solubility limit was approached and exceeded with decreasing pH) and did not appear to affect the rate of iso-alpha production.


Kinetic Modeling of Hop Acids during Wort Boiling;Yarong Huang, Johannes Tippmann, and Thomas Becker; International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2013

Interesting paper on the effects of pH, temp and time vs. the creation of alpha acids. Math heavy, but they're suggesting higher pH (6.5 even) requires less energy and time to complete the reactions. He seems to suggest that pre-isomerization, as in prior to and separate from the wort production, could be carried out in a controlled solution, in a production brewery. Here's a non-math blurb on pH:

The experimentally determined Arrhenius equations and activation energies derived therefrom for total iso-alpha-acids with different pH values, are summarized in Table I. The results obtained indicated that raising pH value from 4.5 to 5.5 and from 5.5 to 6.5 decreased the reaction energy fast 20 kJ/mol. Clarke noted that the iso-alpha-acids can be hydrolyzed or converted to humulinic acid with aqueous alkali. In iso-alpha-acids, splitting of the isohexenoyl side chain at C4 prefers to at a high pH value.

In this paper, the kinetics of degradation of iso-alpha-acids has been studied through boiling experiments in an aqueous buffer model system as a function of time, temperature and pH value. The free energy of activation and the reaction rate constant (k) of the degradation of total and individual iso-alpha-acids were calculated at four pH levels. The determination of the reactions order was run by a program compiled in Matlab R2007a language, which is a powerful software for numerical calculation. By raising the pH value of the reaction mixture increased the degradation of iso-alpha-acids. By raising the boiling temperature decreased the influence of pH value on the degradation of iso-alpha-acids significantly.


I can't find a link to this one but I have the PDF:

A Kinetic Study on the Isomerization of Hop Alpha-Acids,Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2008

This is another interesting one with correlations to temperature, from 80C-100C and the formation and destruction of acids during the boil (higher the temp, the faster the isomerization). Some info:

Hop R-acids and the essential hop oils are at the origin of key &#64258;avor attributes of beer, namely, typical beer bitterness and hoppy aroma. With respect to conventional hopping, a most important chemical conversion occurs during wort boiling, namely, the thermal isomerization of the hop R-acids to the bitter tasting iso-R-acids via an acyloin-type ring contraction.

Conversion of each R-acid results in two epimeric iso-Racids, distinguished as a trans- and cis-iso-R-acid. Consequently, six major iso-R-acids are present in beer, i.e., the trans- and cis-isomers of isocohumulone, isohumulone, and isoadhumulone. Unfortunately, upon wort boiling, the isomerization yield of R-acids into iso-R-acids is invariably low (at most 50-60%) and also subject to variations, even from brew to brew. At the origin of the poor R-acid isomerization are the limited solubility of R-acids in wort, incomplete isomerization during the boil, and depletion of R-acids and iso-R-acids because of adsorption on the trub being formed. Furthermore, factors such as pH, wort gravity, hopping rate, hop product(s) used, presence of divalent cations, duration and temperature of the boil, and the degree of dispersal of the R-acids upon addition of hops all have important in&#64258;uences on the R-acid isomerization yield and &#64257;nal utilization (3–10). Final overall R-acid utilization is related to the beer, and this value is still signi&#64257;cantly lower than the isomerization yield, amounting to only 30-40% or even as low as 10-20% (11). This is due to further losses of iso-R-acids postwort boiling, i.e., further losses during wort clari&#64257;cation, fermentation, maturation, and beer &#64257;ltration.


R-acids is alpha-acids not copy/pasting well.

I'm having trouble reading a clear answer from anybody on this thread. I'll provide an example that might help us to illustrate our points. I'm making a hoppy american red (NB's West Coast Radical Red kit) this weekend, with an extract recipe since I don't have time for all grain right now. My plan is: steep 2lb grains -> add 1lb DME -> add hops -> full volume 60 min boil -> 6lbs LME at flameout. Does anyone think this is a stupid plan? Thanks for input.

StarrHill said:

I'm having trouble reading a clear answer from anybody on this thread. I'll provide an example that might help us to illustrate our points. I'm making a hoppy american red (NB's West Coast Radical Red kit) this weekend, with an extract recipe since I don't have time for all grain right now. My plan is: steep 2lb grains -> add 1lb DME -> add hops -> full volume 60 min boil -> 6lbs LME at flameout. Does anyone think this is a stupid plan? Thanks for input.

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Probably the reason you're having trouble with a clear answer is that there are lots of different opinions. IMO, if you're doing a full volume boil with a "normal" gravity beer, like you're doing, there's no need for late addition extract. I'd add it all at the beginning. When I do late addition, I prefer to add enough at the start to get pretty close to 1.040 boil gravity. One of my reasons is that there is considerable disagreement about the effect boil gravity has on hop utilization. By keeping boil gravity at around 1.040, I feel that the gravity effect is more predictable.

@Weezy - ok, I'm gathering cliff notes version is hop tea can be very effective and efficient, but don't destroy your alpha acids by cooking too long.

I think the point is nobody is wrong. Hop extraction and isomerization is a sloppy, low efficiency, process and we don't need to worry about the minutiae so much. Pick an ibu equation you like, boil the hops for X minutes for Y IBUs in whatever wort or water you have, and train your taste buds to know that this beer is what Y IBUs tastes like. Similarly for extract. Add it when it works for your process.

Sanguine advice. Ok. Thanks!