AG Boil-Time and First-Time AG Recipe Help

Okay, my first question has to do with boil times for AG. In the Clone Brews book, they have a recipe for Magic Hat #9, which I've made using extract and specialty grains. In the AG method, it says:

"Mash 8.75 lb. British 2-row pale malt, 6 oz. US wheat malt, and .5 lb. US 60L crystal malt at 150*F for 90 minutes."

So far, so good. Now, here' where my question comes in. The next line says:

"Add 5 HBU of Tettnanger for 90 minutes of the boil. Add the flavor hops and the Irish moss for the last 15 minutes of the boil."

This seems pretty consistent for nearly all of their AG recipes. Why would they suggest to boil for 90 minutes instead of 60?

And my last question is, would this recipe be good for a first time AG batch? I would like to do this one first, primarily because I have a 6-pack of this left over from the extract batch, and I would like to compare the two to see the difference. I list the full recipe below, thanks for the help!

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0.5 lb. US 60L crystal malt
8.75 lb. British 2-row pale malt
6 oz. US wheat malt
1.1 oz. Tettnanger (bittering)

.25 oz. Willamette (flavor)
.25 oz. Cascade (flavor)
1 tsp. Irish moss

Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast

3 oz. apricot beer flavoring in secondary

Mash 8.75 lb. British 2-row pale malt, 6 oz. US wheat malt, and .5 lb. US 60L crystal malt at 150*F for 90 minutes.

Add 5 HBU of Tettnanger for 90 minutes of the boil. Add the flavor hops and the Irish moss for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Pretty long mash, and a long boil. I don't know why- unless they are assuming that everybody would have conversion in 90 minutes, and that you'd have alot to boil down, so to boil for 90 minutes.

I'd mash for 60 minutes (or until conversion) and boil for 60 minutes. Definitely no need for longer!

Can you really use iodophor to test to see if your conversion is complete?

Here's what I was told I could do; take a bit of the liquid from your MLT, put it in a small bowl, drop a small bit of your iodophor in there, and if it stays the same brownish color, it's done, if it turns dark or black, it's not.

Never heard of using IODOPHER but I have read about Tincture of Iodine.

Longer boils will give better hops utilization. The recipe that you provided would have 26.4 IBUs with a 90 Minute boil vice 25.1 with a 60 minute boil. You can really see a difference with the amount of hops versus boil time when using high alpha acid hops for bittering. You can use less hops for the same amount of IBU by increasing the length of the boil.

Another advantage to a longer boil is a larger sparge volume which can give higher efficiencies. So yes there is a reason for the longer boils. I pretty much always boil for 90 minutes so that I can extract as much sugar from the mash tun as I possible can. For some of my recipes I don't add the bittering hops until 60 minutes left in the boil.

I use BeerSmith with my recipes so that is where I got most of the information from for the answer above. I have read about this in books but for me seeing is an increase in understanding.

Edit: Oh and uh, yes. That would be a good recipe for a first timer.

Eskimo Spy said:

Can you really use iodophor to test to see if your conversion is complete?

Here's what I was told I could do; take a bit of the liquid from your MLT, put it in a small bowl, drop a small bit of your iodophor in there, and if it stays the same brownish color, it's done, if it turns dark or black, it's not.

Click to expand...

That's basically what you do to test for conversion, but Yooper is right, in my opinion. You're probably going to have the same amount of conversion at 90 that you would at 60.

If my grain bill is 17# or more, I mash for 90 minutes. Under that, mash usually 60 minutes.
If I'm making a Scottish ale, I'll boil longer for more of a carmelization.
Depends on what you want/prefer.

CentralWABrewing said:

If my grain bill is 17# or more, I mash for 90 minutes. Under that, mash usually 60 minutes.
If I'm making a Scottish ale, I'll boil longer for more of a carmelization.
Depends on what you want/prefer.

Click to expand...

The amount of grain shouldn't matter because there is the same ration of enzymes to malt. As long as you have enough diastatic power, you will convert usually be converted in 60 minutes regardless of the grain bill.

I always boil for 90 to get better efficiency. You can sparge more because you boil off more, so you can get a couple extra points on you efficiency.