Do I need to boil for full hour?

I am brewing a mild Blonde for SWMBO tomorrow and I was wondering...I have some grains to be steeped for 30 minutes, The rest of the kit is simply LME and there is a 15 minute cascade hop addition. Is there any benefit for using a full 1 hour boil here or would it be benefit from boiling the full hour. I dont mind taking the time to boil, but I am thinking the longer boil will only darken the beer more. Any suggestions?

As long as you get your protein break, there really isn't any reason to boil longer than 15 minutes or so if your hop schedule doesn't need it. You'll need to adjust your water quantities to account for less boil-off, but many recipes call for a nice short boil with no trouble.

If you like the blonde this time with a full 50 min boil, you could try less time next time and see how it turns out. That's just me because I like experimenting.

If you really have no bittering hops (which is kinda weird) I would say just boil it for 15 minutes. Just make sure it is a nice hard rolling boil though.

If you only have one hop addition of 15 minutes, I'd just do a 15 minute boil.

I thought extracts didn't need to be boiled as they are already processed... or are we discussing the grains? My last two beers I did I used a technique I heard of here and added the extracts at knockout. They aren't finished though so I don't know what the results were

The liquor from the grains must be boiled, but the DME and LME don't really have to be boiled at all, unless just to sanitize them a bit. The grains typically have lactobacillus and other bacteria on them, so the liquor from them must be boiled.

I thought extracts didn't need to be boiled as they are already processed... or are we discussing the grains? My last two beers I did I used a technique I heard of here and added the extracts at knockout. They aren't finished though so I don't know what the results were

brewhaha2057 said:

I thought extracts didn't need to be boiled as they are already processed... or are we discussing the grains? My last two beers I did I used a technique I heard of here and added the extracts at knockout. They aren't finished though so I don't know what the results were

Click to expand...

I would slightly prefer to boil for at least 15min to pasteurize and to get a bit of protein out of suspension, but you could probably get away without doing so.

If there's an extract out there which isn't boiled to the point of hot break before concentration, I'm unaware of it. (And I've looked deeply into it, I assure you. )

All the manufacturers boil their pre-extract wort. You do not need to boil extracts. It is up to your conscience whether you even need to heat-sterilize it.

The foam seen when sweet wort is brought to a boil is not hot break. Hot break is the large chunks of coagulated protein swirling about in the kettle; that coagulation is brought about by boiling. There are proteins in the foam, yes, but that doesn't make it hot break. Proper usage of jargon is important.

Cheers,

Bob

Bob said:

The foam seen when sweet wort is brought to a boil is not hot break. Hot break is the large chunks of coagulated protein swirling about in the kettle; that coagulation is brought about by boiling. There are proteins in the foam, yes, but that doesn't make it hot break. Proper usage of jargon is important.

Click to expand...

I'll take a picture of it next time for you.

I'm not talking about foam, but about large chunks of coagulated protein, brought about by boiling. It's not a huge quantity of material (like I get from mash runnings), but it is undeniably present. Check out the datasheet on your favorite extract sometime; it still has plenty of protein content.

Whether or not you want to get rid of that protein is of course a different question (and I doubt it matters), but saying that extracts never exhibit hot break is incorrect.

Bob said:

All the manufacturers boil their pre-extract wort. You do not need to boil extracts. It is up to your conscience whether you even need to heat-sterilize it

Bob

Click to expand...

Yes, thank you. This is what I thought. In my mind if you add it at 212 degrees, fully incorporate it and the temp is still reading 190, this is sterilizing enough