Muntons Hopped Dark Extract Question

Okay, My first time brewing was last Saturday, and a buddy and I did a 3.3lb Muntons Hopped Dark LME and used a Mr. Beer fermenter as the primary.

Our goal was a finished ABV of 9-10% with a flavor rivaling a Thomas Creek Up The Creek (barleywine-esque).

Our ingredients, after talking to an employee at Thomas Creek, were:


3 Cups of sugar dissolved into 4 cups of water
3.3lb Muntons Hopped Dark LME
1 Wyeast Scotch Ale SmackPack
Addition of water to raise finished level to 8 quarts

I brought the sugar and water to a rolling boil and added the LME, added the wort to the additional water and pitched the yeast.

Our initial gravity reading was 1.070 (which seemed right on).

My problem is... I didn't realize that the wort had to be boiled for another hour or so after adding the extract, so we just immediately added the wort to the addtional water and pitched the yeast...

After 96 hours, the yeast is still extremely active and seems to be fermenting at a rapid pace, but will the finished product taste like a donkey's rear end without the additional boil???

I don't know about the recipe, since I've never used those items, but you don't have to boil a prehopped extract at all so you're fine without boiling it.

RDWHAHB. It's really tough to totally mess up a brew. (It's also really tough to replicate someone elses brew and have it come out tasting like that brew, but that's a story for another day.)

The reason you generally want to boil your wort for an hour is that you need to extract the oils from your hops and that takes time. (There are a ton of other reasons but that is a good starting point.) Since you used hopped extract you will be allright in that regard. Your beer will probaly taste just fine, if it doesn't taste exactly like what you were hoping it would than you'll just need to try and try again. The single best thing you can do to ensure that you end up with drinkable brew is to read, read and read some more. The more you know the better off your beer will be. And it goes with out saying that the second most important thing to do is keep brewing. Practice makes perfect. Find yourelf a local homebrew shop, go in and hang around and make some friends there. Every brewer I've ever met is more than glad to help out a n00b. Ask a lot of questions, bring a few samples of your brew by the shop and be prepared to accept constructive critisism.

Let us know how it works out for you.

PTN