Three Extra Pound of DME = Burnt Wort?

Hello all,

My friends and I recently decided to try to increase the alcohol level of our beer, so we added three extra pounds of pilsen light DME to our pale ale recipe, without changing any other ingredients. After taking over an hour to achieve the hot break, we began to notice that the wort was drastically changing to a darker color and beginning to smell burnt. After further examination, we decided to toss out the batch because the wort seemed to be burnt beyond repair. Does anyone have any idea what may have happened? Should we have added more water to the recipe since we added more DME? Any help would be grateful.

Thanks!

Stir grasshopper, stir!

whodatgeauxbrew said:

Hello all,

My friends and I recently decided to try to increase the alcohol level of our beer, so we added three extra pounds of pilsen light DME to our pale ale recipe, without changing any other ingredients. After taking over an hour to achieve the hot break, we began to notice that the wort was drastically changing to a darker color and beginning to smell burnt. After further examination, we decided to toss out the batch because the wort seemed to be burnt beyond repair. Does anyone have any idea what may have happened? Should we have added more water to the recipe since we added more DME? Any help would be grateful.

Thanks!

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How many gallons were you boiling? Did you remove the kettle from the heat to mix the DME? Did you stir the DME till dissolved?

How large was your brew pot? 3 extra pounds of DME is a lot... Considering 5% beers are 6lbs usually.

We initially put 3 gallons of water in the pot. After the grains were steeped for 30 minutes, we removed the grains and brought the water to a boil. Once we achieved the boil, we killed the heat and beging stirring in the 9 lbs. of DME (instead of the 6 lbs. we usually use). However, after all of the clumps were dissolved, we did not continue stirring. We just kept removing the pot from the heat every time the boiling reached the top of the pot. After an hour of this, the hot break finally occurred.

We brew outside in a 10 gallon pot. So we put TOO much extra DME in there? I guess we were getting too ambitious with our desired alcohol level.

whodatgeauxbrew said:

We initially put 3 gallons of water in the pot. After the grains were steeped for 30 minutes, we removed the grains and brought the water to a boil. Once we achieved the boil, we killed the heat and beging stirring in the 9 lbs. of DME (instead of the 6 lbs. we usually use). However, after all of the clumps were dissolved, we did not continue stirring. We just kept removing the pot from the heat every time the boiling reached the top of the pot. After an hour of this, the hot break finally occurred.

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Continuing stirring probably would have helped. When boiling get the wort to a boil than turn it down a bit. You can boil at a lower temp instead of removing the heat continually.

whodatgeauxbrew said:

We brew outside in a 10 gallon pot. So we put TOO much extra DME in there? I guess we were getting too ambitious with our desired alcohol level.

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If 3 gallons reached the top in a 10 gallon pot the heat must have been on pretty high.

Since you have such a large pot you could do full size boils.

I brew about 4 to 4.5 gallons in a 5 gal. pot outdoors. When my water just starts to boil, I turn the flame down so it keeps a gentle rolling boil. No chance of boil overs. Stir lots at addition times, then about every 10 minutes to make sure nothing is settling on the bottom. Seems to be working for this Noob... brewed 7 batches this way and never anything stuck to bottom or burnt taste/smell.

So is there no need to add more water since I am adding more DME? Should we try adding 1 or 2 pounds instead of 3? Does anyone have a good resource for moving to full boil?

whodatgeauxbrew said:

So is there no need to add more water since I am adding more DME? Should we try adding 1 or 2 pounds instead of 3? Does anyone have a good resource for moving to full boil?

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You shouldn't have to add more water to boil without scorching, but since you have a large pot it can't hurt.

Full boils are not much different than partial boils. You would boil the top off water instead of adding it after the boil. I think the hop utilization will change though. You also have to account for boil off. On average 1 gallon boils off per hour.

whodatgeauxbrew said:

So is there no need to add more water since I am adding more DME? Should we try adding 1 or 2 pounds instead of 3? Does anyone have a good resource for moving to full boil?

Click to expand...

The major thing is to stir, stir, stir--especially make sure you're scraping the bottom of the pot with your mash paddle. If any DME sticks to the bottom, it'll burn and create off flavors.

Full boil has 2 adjustments to make:
1. Hops utilization is better (less isoAAs precipitate out, so more stay in the final solution).
2. Chilling is more difficult--the ice water bath method works okay for a 3-gallon boil, but with 5 gallons you have 2 problems: 1) There's a lot more to chill, so it takes longer; and 2) With a partial boil, usually you top off with refrigerated water so you only need to chill to 80F or 85F and it magically drops to the low 60s when you top it off.

To solve (1), use something like http://beercalculus.hopville.com or http://www.hbd.org/recipator to enter your hops amounts with the partial boil size, note the IBUs, then switch to a 5 gallon boil and tweak the hops amounts until you get the same IBUs.

To solve(2), you probably want to get a wort chiller (I prefer immersion chillers over CFC/plate chillers, for reasons outlined by Jamil on his site, but plenty of people use the other kinds with no problems).

Otherwise, as long as your heat source is strong enough to get a vigorous boil going it's pretty much the same--start with 6 gallons and you'll boil off about a gallon during the hour. Note how much you wind up with for future reference, so you can adjust that 6 gallons up or down a bit for your setup.

another option, that might be helpful, in addition to going with full boils, is to add some of the extract/sugars later in the boil. instead of adding all 9 lbs at the beginning. add 3 lbs at 60 min, 3 lbs at 40 min and 3 lbs at 20 min (just an example).

the dme doesn't have to be boiled for the full time, and the less time it has in the pot, the less likely it is to burn.

and stir stir stir!

I feel like our hot break took much longer because we added 50% more DME. If we were to added the DME in intervals like the example listed above, will we have 3 different hot breaks to deal with?

9 lbs of DME isn't a lot. I would second the stir recommendation but would also look at adding more water. The full boil suggestion is a good one....if you have a wort chiller.

Sorry was at work but boss came up.. late addition is a BIG plus and stir stir stir grasshopper!

sorry you dumped you could have had a faux smoked beer! NEVER dump! Unless its a complete lost cause! had one go "sour" and 8mo later it's AMAZING has a Strawberry back bit that almost went into competition... just decided to drink the last few! so good!

Well, I always tell my partners to never dump out a batch of beer because of what I have read on these boards. They outnumbered me so we dumped it. A DAMN SHAME.