Full boil AND late extract addition?

I just got the necessary equipment to do a full boil. Also, I've done three batches, and with every batch I followed the instructions and boiled the entire amount of extract with 2.5 gal of water for the full 60 minutes. I've just now done the research on the benefits of late extract addition and would like to do that as well.

My question is: does it make sense to do a full 5 gal boil and do the late extract addition as well, or should I just pick one or the other and go with it? If I do a late extract addition, what is the recommended amount to add late (15 min left)? I've seen some people recommending only using 20% of the extract for the full hour, while others recommend boiling half of the extract for the full hour and adding the rest at 15 min.

Thanks in advance for the help!

I'm a newby myself, but my understanding is that the late extract addition is going to give you a light color, with ask the benefits of the fermentable sugars. Idont think it is going to matter whether or not it is a full or partial boil. If anything, the full boil should give you less risk of infection. Good luck.

You'll want some added gravity for your boil so you can bring the pH down a bit, that will prevent you from getting astringent or tannin flavors from your hops. But there's no precise amount that you will need, as in 20% or 50%. I do partial mashes, so I just wait until knockout and add all of my DME then. There's no reason to boil the late addition extract at all, but if you want to do it at 15 mins or so, that's fine too. You'll have slightly better alpha acid isomerization with the lower gravity boil, so you might tone your hop schedule down ever so slightly, but personally I've never noticed much of a difference.

I would definitely suggest doing late extract addition for any brewer, regardless of boil size. You'll get a color that's closer to what you were shooting for and, like I said, outside of the gravity you get from the extract, there really is no reason to boil your extract since it was already boiled in it's creation.

I put all the extract in at flameout

Lighter... It should be. Risk of infection, I have not had.

I hate watching star wars and surfing on the internet.

Full boil negates the purpose of the late extract addition.

Malticulous said:

Full boil negates the purpose of the late extract addition.

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That was kind of what I was thinking, so it's why I asked the question. I don't see any harm in doing both, though. Seems like it would make the beer just a little lighter in color.

Everyone says that late additions make the beer lighter but I haven't found that:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/my-non-scientific-dme-darkening-test-w-pic-comparison-236005/

Does anyone else want to do their own test and compare results? I'm thinking of redoing my test eventually to do it the proper way and actually boil the water for 60 minutes with adding the extract at the 10 minutes left mark - this way the boil off should match and give a much more accurate result. But since it would take twice the time I just did my experiment with a 60 minute boil and a 10 minute boil, but the results are still very interesting.


Rev.

Rev2010 said:

Everyone says that late additions make the beer lighter but I haven't found that:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/my-non-scientific-dme-darkening-test-w-pic-comparison-236005/

Does anyone else want to do their own test and compare results? I'm thinking of redoing my test eventually to do it the proper way and actually boil the water for 60 minutes with adding the extract at the 10 minutes left mark - this way the boil off should match and give a much more accurate result. But since it would take twice the time I just did my experiment with a 60 minute boil and a 10 minute boil, but the results are still very interesting.


Rev.

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Yeah, my understanding is that a partial boil can sometimes caramelize the extract, giving it a darker color than anticipated, while late addition extract simply doesn't get any darker. So it isn't that the beer is lighter than normal, rather no darker than normal. However, if you aren't doing a 60 minute rolling boil with 2 gallons of water along with your extract, the caramelizing might be much less pronounced, so you might not see much difference. The less water and the hotter the boil, the more caramelizing you will get.

The other benefit, at least in my experience, is you get better attenuation, I assume because there is less caramelizing, which can also reduce the fementability of your sugars.

The biggest reason I do late extract addition at flameout is because I am using an electric ceramic top stove and it just takes forever to return to a boil, so I steep my grains in 2.5 gallons of water, then just use that for the boil. Plus you do get better hop utilization. You can either reduce your hops or use them later for more flavor addition.

I guess it is a bit "risky" not boiling the extract at all; essentially you are trusting the manufacturer and supplier to have not introduced any bacteria, etc, but I have not had any problems in the last 5 batches doing exactly that. I just don't want to wait 45 mins for the wort to return to a boil

JWest said:

I just got the necessary equipment to do a full boil. Also, I've done three batches, and with every batch I followed the instructions and boiled the entire amount of extract with 2.5 gal of water for the full 60 minutes. I've just now done the research on the benefits of late extract addition and would like to do that as well.

My question is: does it make sense to do a full 5 gal boil and do the late extract addition as well, or should I just pick one or the other and go with it? If I do a late extract addition, what is the recommended amount to add late (15 min left)? I've seen some people recommending only using 20% of the extract for the full hour, while others recommend boiling half of the extract for the full hour and adding the rest at 15 min.

Thanks in advance for the help!

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It depends on what benefits you are after. If you want better hop utilization, then yes.

If you are trying to avoid caramelizing your extract, then it's probably redundant, as the extra water will help prevent that, though I imagine if you got a full boil rolling for 60 minutes, you might get some caramelizing, just much less than in a partial boil.

If you have a nice burner, then you might add it in at 15 minutes (that's what brewtarget is setup for late addition calculations). That will also make sure the extract gets one last bit of pasteurizing before it goes in. I just do it at flameout to avoid the delay in returning to a boil, due to the limitations of my stove top.

Brewtarget is nice because you can specify which ingredients go in "late" and get a reasonable estimate of your hop utilization.

I personally wouldn't bother with a late extract addition unless this is a batch you've already brewed and were worried about the color of it previously. If you're shooting for a 1.05 beer, figure the start of the boil is actually going to be less than that when you count in the extra volume for boil off (1.042 for 6 gal starting volume). That's a far cry from the gravities of 1.0-1.2 you might get with a partial boil and the same recipe. So long as the extract is thoroughly stirred in before the boil gets going I don't think you'd have to worry about any caramelization.

I also kind of wonder if a lower gravity boil does anything different to the hop character. I know lower gravities can extract more alpha acids, but there are so many other variables going on that I don't know anything about that I like to have my boil gravity at around the gravity of the finished beer. For me that means a late addition for a partial boil, but I'd be worried about boiling a sub-1.02 wort just to get a slightly lighter color.

Dragging up an old thread here I know, but I think of it this way....do AG brewers add their mash late to a full boil? Of course not. So why would we do late extract addition for a full volume boil? Once you've added your 6lb or so of extract to ~6 gallons of water, and mixed it well, it's no longer extract, it's the same wort as you'd get from an AG process.

Because extract has already been boiled and had its hot break, it is not the same as your wort from the AG mash tun. also it will darken during a full boil and can scorch if you are not careful. there is more but I'm outta beer and need to get a fresh one.

It seems, from what I'm reading here and elsewhere that the benefits of a late addition are not obviated by a full boil; they seem to be 2 methods to achieve similar results, particularly lightening the color and preventing excessive Maillard or caramelly flavors.

I just brewed a Brewer's Best Imperial Blonde Ale that was supposed to be Golden and taste like a big blonde. Instead it came out dark caramel, nearly red, and tasting A LOT like caramel. I followed the instructions exactly (only half boil).

Given that LME has been noted to cause "extract twang", which is worsened by overcooking of the LME, it makes sense to dilute the LME to the greatest degree (via full boil) and also to only add it in at the end long enough to sanitize it. I'm trying this on my next batch of lighter beer to avoid the darkening and over-carmelization.

@brews2gf, i actually just brewed a brewer's best kit also, which is their seasonal hopnog 2017 (NE IPA). As part of their instructions, half the extract is added in the last 10 minutes of the boil. It is still in the fermenter, but color is light and looks good. I do full boils. The wort did not have any caramel tastes. This is my first brewer's best kit.

I do full boils and still just "follow the directions". If it calls for a late addition, I do a late addition. It just makes life easier for me to mark everything from 60, 45, 30, 15 etc and make the additions at the time the recipe calls. Spreads things out a bit. As far as quality, I dunno I think all my brews have turned out pretty good.

My $0.02

When I do extract brews I normally start with about a gallon and a half of water and only a couple scoops of my LME. In the last 10 minutes or so I will add the remaining extract. This drastically reduces, if not eliminates, the 'extract twang', lightens the color (especially with x-light syrup), and never threatens to boil over.

I've done full boils as well with extract with all the extract and late addition. Although the difference isn't as noticeable, it's still there.

GeekBrew said:

@brews2gf, i actually just brewed a brewer's best kit also, which is their seasonal hopnog 2017 (NE IPA). As part of their instructions, half the extract is added in the last 10 minutes of the boil. It is still in the fermenter, but color is light and looks good. I do full boils. The wort did not have any caramel tastes. This is my first brewer's best kit.

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Sorry I missed your reply. I’d like to hear how the Hopnog turned out.

Since my earlier post I’ve done a BB Weizenbier extract kit and it came out *much* lighter. It called for a late addition, plus it only used DME and not LME, and I did a full boil.

Here’s the color going into bottles; it tasted great even before carbing. Also note: I pitched 2 vials of Clarity Ferm with the yeast because the wheat bill was so high and I have Celiac. Still cloudy but that’s the style for hefe right

brews2gf said:

It seems, from what I'm reading here and elsewhere that the benefits of a late addition are not obviated by a full boil; they seem to be 2 methods to achieve similar results, particularly lightening the color and preventing excessive Maillard or caramelly flavors.

I just brewed a Brewer's Best Imperial Blonde Ale that was supposed to be Golden and taste like a big blonde. Instead it came out dark caramel, nearly red, and tasting A LOT like caramel. I followed the instructions exactly (only half boil).

Given that LME has been noted to cause "extract twang", which is worsened by overcooking of the LME, it makes sense to dilute the LME to the greatest degree (via full boil) and also to only add it in at the end long enough to sanitize it. I'm trying this on my next batch of lighter beer to avoid the darkening and over-carmelization.

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Here’s a pic of that beer for color comparison:

brews2gf said:

Also note: I pitched 2 vials of Clarity Ferm with the yeast because the wheat bill was so high and I have Celiac.

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Not to side track the discussion here, maybe this deserves a new thread, but do you consume your beers, and are you typically brewing Gluten Free? I thought celeiacs couldn't drink "regular" beer?

irontodd said:

Not to side track the discussion here, maybe this deserves a new thread, but do you consume your beers, and are you typically brewing Gluten Free? I thought celeiacs couldn't drink "regular" beer?

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The quick answer here is that it depends on the Celiac-person. For those (like me) who can drink beers marketed as “crafted to remove gluten”, they can also drink homebrew made with Clarity Ferm (which is the same enzyme used in the commercial process which enables them to make claims about reducing gluten).

The point is that the gluten count gets down to less than 5 ppm typically using Clarity Ferm, so I can drink beers using it. I’ve had many batches this way and never had a reaction.

There are some people I guess for whom even this small amount is unacceptable and they can only use GF ingredients.

brews2gf said:

... it makes sense to dilute the LME to the greatest degree (via full boil) and also to only add it in at the end long enough to sanitize it. I'm trying this on my next batch of lighter beer to avoid the darkening and over-carmelization.

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I found this tip (July 2017, https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=29885.msg392903#msg392903) to be helpful in accurately estimating SRM. Looking at the Briess light DME and pilsen DME spec sheets, it's 'easy't osee why why some people use a plisen DME (rather than a light DME) go get lighter color. IIRC, the spec sheets for LME are similar (when I brew with extract malt, it's DME).

There's also an article from way back in 2007 (http://menuinprogress.com/2007/08/on-importance-of-late-extract-addition.html) which matches https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...c-dme-darkening-test-w-pic-comparison.236005/.