mev

Recipes 

I'm brewing my first batch if beer, a malt extract pale ale. When the water came to a boil, I threw in the hops, then the malts. I've been waiting for the hot break/foam, and realized, I added the hops too early, or at least I think so. Do I need to do anything to compensate or fix it?

BrianP

Recipes 

Your beer will just have higher bitterness, since the hops were in the boil for a little longer time. Your beer will still be fine, so I wouldn't worry about it.

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nosmatt

Recipes 

the first addition should boil for 60 mins anyway on a pale, no?

the last addition you dont wanna miss tho, might miss out on some hoppy goodness!

mev

Recipes 

Thanks. I don't mind bitter beer, actually that's what I prefer. Should I boil it a little longer than an hour?

davesrose

Recipes 

There's really not going to be much of a noticeable difference, don't worry about that. You get more infusion of hops during the actual boiling....and with pale ales, there's usually a hop schedule that you have to adhere to...add in a certain amount of hops right at the start of boiling, and continue to step in some more hops up to 2 or 1 minute until end of boil.

Grinder12000

Recipes 

What? I'm suppose to wait until the hot break??? this is knew to me

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mev

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that make me feel a little better. I guess my concern is that there wasn't a foamy hot break. It just came back to a slow boil, and continued as a slow boil. I boiled it for about 80 minutes...

HBHoss

Recipes 

A lot of recipes have you boil for 55 min then add the finishing hops for the last 5 min. You should be fine. Just don't take your eyes off it because that's when it will erupt.

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mev

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I added the finishing hops and boiled for another 5 minutes, not even close to an eruption.. It's chilling now, so we'll see what happens in a few weeks. Thanks for the quick help.

davesrose

Recipes 

When I was brewing extracts, I also didn't get much of a foamy hotbreak....I think that's more of a phenomenon for all grain. Really, if the main thing you were concerned about during your first brew was whether you added hops too early: you're going to have some mighty fine beer....in fact, excellent for a first beer!!