Boil wort with lid on or off

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zoomer67

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Is there and advantage to boiling with the lid on or off?:confused:

I've heard that there is some advantage to boiling with the lid off (better flavor?), but I lose water in vapor.

Is there a disadvantage to boiling with the lid on (i.e. will it affect the taste)?

If boiling with the lid off, should I start with more water (I do full boil and start with 5 Gallons).

Thanks:mug:
 
Is there and advantage to boiling with the lid on or off?:confused:

I've heard that there is some advantage to boiling with the lid off (better flavor?), but I lose water in vapor.

Is there a disadvantage to boiling with the lid on (i.e. will it affect the taste)?

If boiling with the lid off, should I start with more water (I do full boil and start with 5 Gallons).

Thanks:mug:

The water you are loosing is carrying off/ bad flavors as well as chemicals let it go. Do not boil covered...
 
Always do A Wort boil with lid off to drive of DMS.
You don’t want the DMS giving off flavors to your beer, as the DMS is driven off in the boil
You can bring to boil with lid on to conserve heat but be careful of hot break and pushing lid off.
 
You can keep covered to help get to the boil faster, but once boiling leave the top off. Your recipe calculator should tell you how much wort to start with in order to have 5 gallons left at the end. Usually 6-6 and a half gallons depending on how hard your boil is.
 
*I am a slow typist so what they said above*

Yes you definitely should boil with the lid off, especially if you do all grain batches. The boiling process carries away DMS(dimethylsulfide) in the steam. DMS can cause some off flavors in your finished product. It is fine to keep the lid on to get the boil started but remove the lid as soon as the boil starts.(always watch for boilovers)

The volume of water loss depends on the size of your kettle.. I have a kettle that is about 18 inches in diameter and in a 90 minute boil I lose about 1.5 gallons of water. All I need to do is add 1.5 to whatever my finished wort volume needs to be and viola!

Once you "dial in" your equipment you'll know just how much extra liquid you will need to achieve you final volume so keep on dialing in(brewing) and good luck!
 
You can always add make-up water to the fermenter prior to pitching. I always keep an extra jug of Ice Mountain around for this purpose.
 
I just brewed my very first batch of beer yesterday! (summer ale) and trying to keep the temp up to boiling i kept the lid on about 75% of the time, since my weak apt. stove apparnetly cant handle 2.5 gallons of water. Is the DMS going to have a big impact on my beer? The beer is still in the primary bucket, and I am planning on racking it to the glass secondary as soon as I get home in 5 days. Is there anything that can be done at this point to help get rid of the dms?
Thanks,
A noob
 
ddexter08, at this point, you have what you have. Just be sure to let it age enough before trying it to be sure you aren't tasting green beer. You MIGHT be okay, so go through the process, bottle, age, etc... and see what you end up with. Don't pitch it just yet.
 
Not sure if you will get less DMS from using Extract or not But heres some more info on DMS for you taken, from notes on BJCP course

DMS - Dimethyl Sulfide
• Character: A smell that occurs in babyʼs breath, cats urine, parsnips, ketchup, black currants and sweet
corn. In beer it is often referred to the cooked corn character. Controlling DMS is very difficult and
determining levels by tasting alone are difficult due to other flavor interactions. For example when
phenylethanol (rose flavor) increases, detecting a decrease in perceived DMS is easier.
• Why: DMS originates from a precursor in the germinating embryo of malted barley called DMSP (DMS
Precursor) or SSM (S-methylmethionine) Malt that is well modified tends to contain more of this precursor.
SSM is heat sensitive and can break down to DMS during malting and brewing.
• Control: In more intense kilning, DMS produced is generally driven off with flue gasses, so the more
intense SSM in lager malts than ale malts is due to ale malts being more intensely kilned. Boil is also an
area of DMS production, but with a more vigorous boil, DMS can be driven up to a chimney and be
released. Proper sanitation, fresh yeast cultures, quick wort cooling and high pitching rates also help
control this character.
• Extra note: When caused by bacterial infection, DMS has a more rancid character, more similar to cooked
cabbage and is generally the result of poor sanitation.
• Exception: American Lagers, Cream Ales
 
Wow! Thanks for all the feedback...I hope my Nut brown doesn't get messed up by those DMS...but at least I'll know for my next batch (planning Kolsch:mug:!!)
 
Also, re: vapor loss, does your kit include detailed instructions? I'm just starting out too, and my kits have all given recommended starting water volumes that purposely accounted for the loss, and ended up with the exact right amount of wort. Give it a look, and good luck on your Kolsch!
 
extract has already been boiled, thats what they do to turn it into extract. I would guess then that DMS is much less of an issue using extract.
 
In addition to what has already been posted, if you are worried about too much boil off you can turn your flame down a bit once you get your rolling boil. If you can see your wort churning in your brew pot and its maintaining 212F then you are fine. Jamil brews his beer like this and swears you really do not need a rolling boil, which releases a lot of water, to brew good beer. :mug:
 
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