mysterio

Recipes 

I boiled my last batch with the lid on so as not to lose a gallon through evaporation... However I just noticed the John Palmer website said this will give nasty off-flavours. Do you think this will be noticable or am I being paranoid?

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Brewlog

chillHayze

Recipes 

when I boil w/the lid I get humungous overflow. I don't think the evaporation is anything to worry about as long as you boil at least a gallon and a half. You could add a little water every few minuites if there is concern or your boil is small to begin with.

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RDWHAHB
Every little thing is gonna be alright.

casebrew

Recipes 

There's at leat 3 reasons to boil:

1) reduce volume

2) enhance flavor profile by boiling the hops and malt together

3) boil off some stuff you don't want in your beer.

Soo, keeping the lid on will have effects...

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So far, I've had more experience thinking than I've had brewing....you don't think they are mutually exclusive, do you?

57 batches so far,
33 wine, mostly Loquat, peach, plum, prickly pear
22 beers and ciders
1 sauerkraut
1 Tequila, from a prickly pear wine experiment that didn't work. I call it "Prickly Heat"

david_42

Recipes 

If you keep the lid on, you can't safely maintain a rolling boil, which is really neccessary to dissolve the bittering acids. All you are losing is water and junk you don't want in the beer. You can add water if you need to in the fermenter.

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Remember one unassailable statistic, as explained by the late, great George Carlin: "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!"

"I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact." Elon Musk

budbo

Recipes 

What I generally do is start with 2.5-3 gallons and top it off at each "event" so If I do a 30 min hop I'll bring the volume back up then again at 15 min.... generally I finish with a few cups less than starting boil.

I have also been told this will increase hop utilization as adding more water during the boil allows more of the bittering/flavor oils to dissolve

Kaiser

Recipes 

Did you notice a green vegetable smell of your wort or beer. This is usually caused by DMS, which needs to be driven out out the wort during boiling.

As the others said, boil w/o a lid on and account for the evaporation loss at the beginning or the end of the boil.

Kai

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BrauKaiser.com - brewing science blog - Twitter - water and mash chemistry calculator

mysterio

Recipes 

Didn't notice any smells & I had a rolling boil throughout.

It's packed with centennial so hopefully I won't notice any bad flavours!

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Beer Snob

Recipes 

Hmmm.... I have not noticed any off flavor smells, but boil overs are obviously REAL easy to do with the lid on.

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Michael

"Don't worry, have a homebrew." ,"The "Bible"

Cherries in the wheat
Michael's Wheat

mysterio

Recipes 

Not with my pot, I could cook a doberman in there.

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Brewlog

Desert_Sky

Recipes 

I boiled with the lid on. But I have a notch cut in the kettle for my chiller. And not to mention the fact that being my first batches, I had the top off every 2-3 minutes just to see what was going on.

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Desert Sky Brewing Co.
Sierra Vista, AZ