? About adding extract late
 

I'm getting set to brew my second ever batch, a True Brew Nut Brown ale kit. I would really like to try late extract addition for the liquid extract, which I've been reading about (I'd really like to do full boil, but I don't have a wort chiller). My concern is that this kit came with muntons hopped light mle. No hops are added except for fuggles as a finishing hop. If I add the liquid at the end, will that be enough time to properly bitter? Should I compromise by adding the lme at the start of boil and dme at the end? Or should I just follow the true brew directions and experiment next time? Thanks.

I would think that the hop oils have already been isomerized when they made the extract so your boil time does not matter in terms of extraction. If you were adding whole, plug or pellet hops then you would need to be concerned about how long they were boiling.

Thats what I was hoping. The fuggles pellet hops are instructed to go in with two minutes left in the boil.

Usually late (last 15 minutes) extract additions are associated with less than a full boil to help with the extraction of bittering hops. Not the case with this kit, right. The only other reason I can think of is the late extract addition will produce a little bit lighter SRM due to less caramelization from the boil, but I doubt that will make any significant difference.

I had also understood the 2 reasons for late extract addition was increased hop extraction and less caramelization. I also agree that in the case of a nut brown I see no real reason why.

[smacks head] uh, never mind.

Why are you giving up on the idea of Late extract addition? You're really getting some crappy information and it's dissuading you?

Late extract additions are NOT about hop extraction, it's ABOUT NOT CARMELLING THE WORT. That's it...Making the best beer possible.

The hop extraction would be taken care of with whatever extract was added initilaly, in a non hopped kit.

But you're doing a pre hopped kit, so it doesn't matter. At all...it's irrelevant to the issue at hand.

In your case, the bitterness is already taken care of in a prehopped kit, and you have aroma hops for the end, which is a good thing.

If it's a two can kit, then I would boil one can in your water and add the other one late. If it's a one can then split it in half.

Do it anyway, it will do no harm and if anything it will be good practice for other batches.

Here's a great article from Oz.Craftbrewer.com, on how to make the best beer with cooper's kits...It's from Australia, the home of coopers, and from the craftbrewer radio guys.

Improving Your Kit

It's from the Craftbrewer Radio site...the article is a companion to. Have fun trying it, and relax.

:mug:

Good to see somebody gets it. :mug:

I know the OP has a pre-hopped extract, But--I thought I read that higher Specific Gravity decreased the hops utilization

Doing a partial (water) boil with 1/2 the extract for most of the boil (with late extract addition) should increase hops utilization, correct?

t

Yeah, you read it somewhere :rolleyes:.....but you missed the big point that we're not DEALING WITH HOP UTILIZATION ISSUES IN A PRE-HOPPED KIT. The hops have already been UTILIZED.

That has been taken care of when they boil the kit, hence the term "Pre-hooped"...the only hops being added in this case is aroma...and that's NOT gonna matter.

You're actually confusing what is a very simple brewing issue by over complicating it...and scaring off from doing something.

And in the case of the non-pre-hopped beers where you add bittering hops, honestly the amount of "tweaking" to compensate for that in a LEA is really too insignificant to sweat even, when you are starting out....If you want to be anal, you can, but like so much in brewing, there's many ways to do something, and many theories, and plenty of folks make great beer by ignoring the theories and just doing it.

You wanna hear something interesting? That will really put the idea of small changes in Ibu's and Ibus in general into perspective? :D

John Palmer basically admits that what he wrote about IBU's in How to brew, was essentially "wrong" or at least outdated in light of new science...

It will really screw up you head even...or it will make you not sweat the small stuff, like tweaking a tiny bit of hops. We couldn't perceive that small change anyway,

Sorry to be mean about but I really hate to see someone being dissuaded from doing something that actually GOOD for his beer, and learning his process, by some info that is really just being taken out of context to the issue at hand.

:mug: