Why the boil????

I have made 5 batches of homebrew with the canned beer kits and adding liquid malt. Two of the batches i dumped the can kit and the malt in my fermenter added boiling water - mixed and then topped up with cold water - mixed and pitched yeast.

The other 3 batches i boiled water on the stove in a pot - removed from heat - added canned kit and malt - boiled for about 15 minutes - cooled wort added to fermenter - topped with water - stirred added yeast.

Now most people say you should atleast boil the stuff for a bit - but turns out the 2 kits I made without boiling were my best beers. Leading me to ask - is it really necesarry to boils when using canned kits and liquid malt extract??

You used hopped extract presumably, so it was pre-boiled.

Boiling is necessary to get hop utilization (among other things). If you use un-hopped LME your hop additions will be fux0red.

So, you did OK with what you had. But if you plan on having more control over your ingredients, and creating better beer, etc, you will have to do a boil.

And that is the way for grasshopper1917 to be master1917.

If you are using pre-hopped, no-boil kits, then boiling isn't necessary, especially if you are really sanitary. These beer-in-a-can kits are already 'pre-made' for you.

However, if you are doing extract-based recipes that require hop additions, a boil is required. If you are steeping or mashing, boils become even more important.

There are several ways to bitter a beer, boiling some form of hops being the most common. Some kits and a few commercial beers use hop extracts where the bittering compounds (alpha acids) have been chemically converted. Kits that use hop extracts do not need to be boiled. Some kits use hop extracts and have some hops in them. If you boil one of these kits, it makes a more bitter beer.

What about if you want to keep the beer light in color like a hefe wiezen when using DME? Of course Hefe's aren't highly hopped anyway but I really want it to be light in color like the commercial stuff.

Thanks
Al

GIusedtoBe said:

What about if you want to keep the beer light in color like a hefe wiezen when using DME? Of course Hefe's aren't highly hopped anyway but I really want it to be light in color like the commercial stuff.

Thanks
Al

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Late extract method. Add most of the DME at the end of the boil. HB99 has made a career of it.

what happens if you boil the pre-hopped extract during 1 hour? will it change the taste of the beer? Or will it only be a lost of time?

As david_42 stated, it will make the beer more bitter.

xjiefx said:

what happens if you boil the pre-hopped extract during 1 hour? will it change the taste of the beer? Or will it only be a lost of time?

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I wouldn't do it. You will boil away a lot of hop flavour and most of the aroma, with only a small increase in bitterness, if any.

True. Bitterness at the expense of flavor.

ok, thanks!!!