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Butcher · 10-03-2010, 01:01 PM

I found a russian imperial stout that I want to try. It calls for 9.9 pounds of LME but only one cup is added at the beggining and the remainder is added at the end of the boil. What does this accomplish? I haven't seen any other recipes that are like this.

Captain Damage · 10-03-2010, 01:16 PM

Two reasons: 1) It keeps the extract from caramelizing and turning the beer darker than you want it to be. 2) Hop utilization is better with less stuff in the boil.

Many of us will self-adjust our recipes like this. So we've only got a 10%-50% of the extract in for the whole boil and add the remainder at the end.

JBmadtown · 10-03-2010, 02:08 PM

I have also found after doing this a couple times that there may be less risk of a boil over.

I do partial boils (3-4 gal) in a 5 gal pot. Last night, I did an amber that called for 6.3# LME. I added 0.5-1# at first and the rest at the end. Never came close to boiling over.

Captain Damage · 10-03-2010, 02:23 PM

OT, but from my experience the cause of boil-over is the telephone

(or anything else that takes your attention away from the brew pot). I have had boil-overs after adding the remaining extract. Watching the brew pot and riding the temperature/flame when it looks like it's about to boil over is the way to avoid it. It will usually only (try to) boil over once. When it foams up, the proteins coagulate and it settles down again. Yesterdays batch and the one I'm cooking up today I'm trying FermcapS. It went great yesterday, no threat of boil-over.