When to add LME during boil?

I see many of you only add half of the LME during initial boil and then add the other half at the end of e boiling phase. What are the benefits and risks of doing it this way? Thanks

i would suggest that you add it all at the beginning. nobody has confirmed this for me yet, but i think LME and DME do not undergo a hot break before it is packaged and sold. you could possibly get an infection if the extract doesn't get heated long/hot enough.

i don't know exactly why people say to end it at the end, but i suppose it has something to do with the hops in the recipe. wort that has lots of extract in it will not utilize as much of the hops you put in it. maybe the recipe was trying to skimp on hops by keeping the extract levels down until the very end.

if you have a recipe that says to add the DME at the end, and you want to add it at the beginning, use this recipe calculator to adjust the hops quantities and ensure that you keep the hops IBU's at the level the recipe specifies. be sure to set the "batch size" and "boil size" correctly. http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

The longer you boil the LME/DME the more you'll darken your wort.
So for a darker beer I would add all of the sugars right after pulling my steeping grains. For a lighter colored beer some of the sugars will be added in the last 10 minutes uf the boil.
As stated above, I would enter your OG (based on your sugar additions) into an brewing calculator and calculate your bittering hop addition to make sure your keeping close to the recipe guidlines.

The benefits are keeping a beer to style.
The risks are changing the bittering to a level that could be outside the style guidlines.

good luck,

Bull

Whether LME or DME, I start the boil with 1lb and add the remainder at 15 minutes. That's all the hotbreak it needs. You get slightly better hop utilization with a less-dense boil. There is no need to boil off DMS since this has already been done by the maltster. If I'm doing a PM then all of the extract is added at 15 minutes.

When a long boil darkens the wort (as mentioned above), it changes some of the sugars into unfermentables. Overboiled extract may not hit the FG target and it may end up a bit sweeter than you might like.

Barleywines are overboiled on purpose, to add extra caramel notes and color.

Justibone said:

When a long boil darkens the wort (as mentioned above), it changes some of the sugars into unfermentables. Overboiled extract may not hit the FG target and it may end up a bit sweeter than you might like.

Barleywines are overboiled on purpose, to add extra caramel notes and color.

Click to expand...

This is an extremely valuable piece of information thank you

Also, there has been ongoing debate about hop utilization and density of the wort. I can't remember where the thread is, but someone IIRC, somehow showed that there was no perceptible difference in hop utilization between a sugar dense wort or a less dense wort. I completely agree with the statement that making late additions of LME will help prevent darkening the beer. However, in every late addition, you will still want to add it no later than the last 15 minutes of the boil so that any bugs that might be in it are killed.

thanks for all the tips. much appreciated. can't believe how much I have learned in the last week by coming to this forum. cheers.

add it no later than the last 15 minutes of the boil so that any bugs that might be in it are killed.

Click to expand...

Sorry to be nitpicky but... I add it when I add my clarifier. When I used Irish moss, it was at 10 minutes; now I'm using Whirlfloc which recommends 15 minutes, so I do 15 minutes now. The sugar in a partial boil raises the boiling point to well above 212F. I've measured 215F at flameout. 10 minutes at that is more than enough to kill anything that might infect your beer. Consider also that after you add your late-addition extract it takes a good five minutes or more to return to a boil - during which time the wort is at a very high, though not boiling, temperature.

Also, there has been ongoing debate about hop utilization and density of the wort. I can't remember where the thread is, but someone IIRC, somehow showed that there was no perceptible difference in hop utilization between a sugar dense wort or a less dense wort.

Click to expand...

True, the increase in utilization is usually only around 1-3 IBU and is likely to be well below your perception threshold. Ray Daniels points out that at low IBU levels (<20) people can only perceive a difference of about 5 IBU. So with the higher IBU beers most of us brew it's a pretty safe bet that there will be no noticeable difference. But my cheapskate instinct wants to get every IBU I can!

I've added both DME and LME (and honey, and corn sugar) at flame out. I know that it's said that you want to boil it "at least 15 minutes" to kill bugs etc, but at flame out my wort is over 210 degrees. That's enough to pasteurize anything- I pasteurize milk at 160 for example- so flame out is ok with me.

When I added it with 15 minutes left, it stopped my boil. Not really a big deal, but I make a lot of IPAs and APAs so it screwed up my hopping. I started adding it at flame out, and have been much happier.

I don't use extract much anymore, but if I did use it again I'd still do add the majority of it at flame out.

So would boiling longer be a good way to make a cider sweet after fermentation has stopped? Would this convert some of the sugars to unfermentable sugars making the cider not so dry and easier to bottle carb?

donjonson said:

So would boiling longer be a good way to make a cider sweet after fermentation has stopped? Would this convert some of the sugars to unfermentable sugars making the cider not so dry and easier to bottle carb?

Click to expand...

No, I can't imagine boiling a cider. You'd set the pectins (think apple jelly) and boil off the alcohol. You'd kill the yeast, too, so you'd have to add yeast to bottle carb. And then the yeast would eat the sugar, and the bottles would blow up. Cider is fully of simple sugars. Boiling doesn't change that.

Check into pasteurizing the bottles, under the sticky in the the cider thread. I've never done it, but Pappers does it all the time and he's got great advice.

Here are the reasons I do it:

A - better hop utilization. This is debatable, and might very well be wrong, but I think my beers taste better with late addition.

B - no boil overs. With 3 pounds of malt in a 3 gallon boil, I never have a boil over. With 6+ pounds of malt in a 3 gallon boil, I had a hard time preventing boil overs. And I often lost. Which my wife hates.

C - drop the temp of the wort at flame out. When I add the rest of the malt, the wort stops boiling instantly. I've not measure the temp differences, but it seems like it takes me less time to chill my wort when using late addition.

I started doing it for A, but keep doing it for B - the less caked on crap I have to scrape off the stove, the happier everyone in my house is. FWIW.