Water Temperature when adding malt extract

For years I've been following general beer making guidelines and adding my malt extract when the water has reached a boil. The kettle, of course, is removed from heat before adding. In the early days I wan't as attentive and had a few foamy boil overs, which were a pain.
Recently, a candy-maker told me that if I add my sugary substance to low temperature water then bring it up to a boil slowly, while stirring to ensure nothing burns to the bottom, that it's better for the sugars.

So, I'd like to know, can I add malt extract to cold water or does it have to be boiling? Has anyone experimented with water temps?

Thanks.

I guess you could do it that way. I don't think it needs to be cold though. Problem is if you steep any spec grains then top off with your boil water it may be luke warm. Extracts are boiled from the company. Extract is super thick when cold. I put mine into a pot on the stove with water to warm it.

I do late additions with my extract. After i steep i add my boil water, bring to a boil then add about 1/4 to1/2 of the extract. The rest i put in close to or at flame out. This late addition technique is to prevent scorching the wort "burnt taste" as well as color "all extract in at once will make the beer darker". As far as foaming i use Fermcap-s. It eliminates and boil overs or blow offs.

I finally broke down and bought a hard copy of Palmer's 3rd edition of "How to Brew" and I just happened to be reading chapter 7 on Boiling and Cooling. He mentions in a sidebar that DME is easiest to dissolve in cold water, whereas in hot water it has the tendency to clump. On the other hand LME is easier to dissolve in hot water.

Nothing wrong with adding DME pre-boil by this train of thought.

You could always just add the extract at knockout. Youre still adding when the water is hot and theres no need to worry about boil over.

+1 for late extract addition. There are a ton of good threads on here about it.

When I use grains I end up using 3 pots to make beer. I use one smaller pot, about 4 quarts in size. One 4 gallon pot and one 8 or 5 gallon pot depending on if I am doing a full or partial boil. I steep in the small pot at the same time I am heating up water in the other pots. About a gallon in the 4 gallon pot and the rest of the boil water in the largest pot. This way I don't wait as long for the water to come to a boil. Once the steep is done I pour the grains and water through a strainer into the biggest pot and rinse them with the water from the 4 gallon pot.

Any LME I use I put in an ice cream bucket filled with hot tap water. I add it whenever the mood strikes me. At least some at the start but most at flameout.

If you're doing a full boil and you have removed it from the heat or killed the flame while adding, then what temperature you add it at doesn't really matter too much.

If you're doing a partial boil and/or trying to hit high IBU numbers, then a late extract addition is your best bet.

A late malt extract will affect color more than taste if you're already doing full boils.

Sidebar question on full boil vs partial boil...

I think I understand from a technical perspective that a full boil (for a 5 gal batch) would be starting with something on the order of 6-7 gallons then boiled down to hit the ~5 gal target OG. Further, that partial boils are usually a fair bit less than starting with 6-7 gal. Perhaps on the order of 2.5 gal.

So, if I start with ~5 gal, and make additional water additions as the boil goes to keep the volume about 5 gal would this be considered more of a full boil or more still a partial boil?

From a candy-makers perspective, it is better to follow the procedure he described... to make candy. But for the purposes of making beer, you want that full rolling boil going for the majority of brewing time. I second the advice to add at least 50% of your extract at 5 minutes left in the boil or flameout.

Is it weird that I've never had a boilover, or scorched extract despite stirring DME into my kettle over an active flame? My yeast starter wort usually wants to boilover, but I never have to babysit my main volume of kettle wort.

whoaru99 said:

Sidebar question on full boil vs partial boil...

I think I understand from a technical perspective that a full boil (for a 5 gal batch) would be starting with something on the order of 6-7 gallons then boiled down to hit the ~5 gal target OG. Further, that partial boils are usually a fair bit less than starting with 6-7 gal. Perhaps on the order of 2.5 gal.

So, if I start with ~5 gal, and make additional water additions as the boil goes to keep the volume about 5 gal would this be considered more of a full boil or more still a partial boil?

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I'd consider it a partial because you're probably getting the lesser hop utilization that a partial boil typically brings with it. The difference might be negligible unless you're shooting for over 100 IBU.

If you have a recipe, I can play with it later in BeerSmith and see what the difference comes out to.

It comes down to what you're boiling for, right?

Extracts don't truly need to be boiled to make wort. Specialty grains have already been converted by the steep. We boil them for ~15 minutes minimum as a precaution to pasteurize it. Palmer talks about wort darkening, foam stability, etc. as being the effects of boils (with respect to boil gravity and time)..I swear to the good lord, if in brewing all I had to worry about was "foam stability," I'd go pro.

as an extract brewer of novice experience, I'm boiling to work my hops. I'm targeting an IBU number that the software spits out, but in reality the hops are doing so much more and I'm scheduling my hop additions based on experience, even though were still targeting a number out of a black box program.

another reason to boil is to cook down your volume to hit a target OG, but this is a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem.

god, I'm rambling (don't post from happy hour at the pub while on your third scotch ale)...point is, there is a lot of art to this craft (which is 1/2 the fun). Adding the lme/dme to cold water before the boil is fine.

There are recipes that boil only 15 minutes. However, they're going to be very light on IBUs.

Many brewers boil 90 minutes to ensure removal of DMS.

Find what works well enough for you. I'll stick to 60 minutes.

Boiling to reduce liquid volume is only a mechanical problem so far as extract brews are concerned. Once you go all-grain, it's not quite such a mechanical problem because you need a certain amount of liquid to keep the grain bed at the right consistency, then the right amount of liquid in the sparge to extract a reasonable amount of grain without having a piss-poor efficiency.

Im actually going to start cutting my boil times down significantly. I add most if not all of my malt at knockout anyway. Factor in how much higher hop utilization is in a full boil and theres really no reason i cant cut boil times by at least half (in some cases). I dont have to worry about scorching/darkening my malt/wort and i save a significant amount of time. Admittedly i am still pretty new to all of this but as ive mentioned before, theres a lot of info thrown around on this site thats based purely on how old "pros" saw things and not by what really works and doesnt. That info gets passed around as truth unless enough people challenge it. After my first 5 gallon run i realized (after some thought and reading up a bit) that there are so many ways to make your life easier when brewing. Dont be afraid to question things that dont make sense or just ask questions in general. I know, that was kind of a rant but ever since i got into brewing ive found myself questioning a lot of the info ive been told and its made things a heck of a lot easier on me now.

thadius856 said:

Many brewers boil 90 minutes to ensure removal of DMS.

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Only for all grain, not extract.

It depends on the malt you're using too. Recipes heavy with pilsner malt requires 90 minute boils. But removing DMS is not the only reason all grain brewers are doing 90 minute boils. It has a lot to do with deeper kettle caramelization and greater hop bitterness and flavor as well.

Changing your boil from 60m to 30m, effects more than just IBU's. It will also effect flavor. Depending on the type of hops, you can't just use the same hops for bittering and add more. That said, I have done a few hop bursted beers that turned out really well. 20m boils.

Id take a few things into consideration of course. since i add most mnalt at knockout though and i would steep the grains the same way i dont forsee much of a change in flavor. Ill do a few trial runs and see how it goes.