30 min boil??

I just came accross a new recipe for a Mocha Porter and its for a 30 min boil...I am new and never heard of 30 mins, always 60, 90 or 120...what does the time do to the beer? Why would it be 30 and not 60 mins? Just curious...thanks!

8lbs Malt extract
3/4lb black patent grain
1/4lb choc grain
1/2 lb crystal 40L
1/2 lb crystal 90L
Last 2-3 mins of boil add cocoa and coffee
Any feedback is greatly appreciated...
Thank you,
Miguel
@BikeNBrew
Facebook.com/BikeNBrew

I'm new to brewing so I'm just taking a stab at this, but I don't see any hops in the recipe so hop utilization from a longer boil isn't a concern. Seems like the point of the boil in this case would only be to make sure everything was clean of bugs and to get it mixed well.

Am I missing something else?

MTate37 said:

I'm new to brewing so I'm just taking a stab at this, but I don't see any hops in the recipe so hop utilization from a longer boil isn't a concern. Seems like the point of the boil in this case would only be to make sure everything was clean of bugs and to get it mixed well.

Am I missing something else?

Click to expand...

I apologize, it has 2 oz of Kent Golding hops

You could probably do a half hour boil with an extract recipe.. It will throw off your bitterness though, so you'd have to account for that with brewing software.

Don't know exactly what is written in the recipe you refer to but if you, for example, used 2 Oz of hops for a 30 minute boil it would probably be close to the equivalent of 1 Oz for a 60 minute boil

Are you doing a full, or partial, boil? If you do a partial boil of 2.5 Gallons you also only get 1/2 the hop utilisation you would from a full (5 to 6 gallon) boil so maybe this recipe's instructing you to steep your specialty grains, Black patent, choc and crystal in 2.5 to 3 gallons, add a bit of malt extract, bring to boil, add the 2 Oz of hops and boil; for 30 minutes, which would get you the equivalent bittering of a 60 minute boil with a 1/2 Oz of hops.

Ogri said:

Don't know exactly what is written in the recipe you refer to but if you, for example, used 2 Oz of hops for a 30 minute boil it would probably be close to the equivalent of 1 Oz for a 60 minute boil

Are you doing a full, or partial, boil? If you do a partial boil of 2.5 Gallons you also only get 1/2 the hop utilisation you would from a full (5 to 6 gallon) boil so maybe this recipe's instructing you to steep your specialty grains, Black patent, choc and crystal in 2.5 to 3 gallons, add a bit of malt extract, bring to boil, add the 2 Oz of hops and boil; for 30 minutes, which would get you the equivalent bittering of a 60 minute boil with a 1/2 Oz of hops.

Click to expand...

Ogri,
Thats exactly what the recipe is asking for...so why a 30 min boil is it because the 2.5 gallons to steep the grains are already taking 30 mins if a 60 min boil?
Thank you!!

Care to post the (exact instructions of the) recipe?? Might make it easier for helping you.


I'm not quite getting your question but the steeping time is prior to the boil with hops so not really connected. Although a 30 minute steep and 30 minute hop boil does equal 60 minutes. The longer you boil hops the more bittering you'll get from them. This is reasonably linear up to 1 hour, so if you boil 1 Oz of hops for 30 minutes you'd get roughly half the bitterness of 1 Oz boiled for 60 minutes. If you add some hops at around 15 minutes before turning off the gas (flame out) those hops would infuse the brew with their flavour, similarly if you add some hops at 5 minutes before flame out this addition would add more to aroma. As mentioned above, all of these values would be halved again if the boil volume was halved.

I'm not sure why the recipe is telling you to do things the way it seems to be.

Depending on the type of hops they've given you for this recipe you could try a slightly different (more involved) hop schedule.

What hops do you have with this kit?