Quick question I cant seem to find an answer for..

Hey fellas -

Im curious. Can you over heat your beer during the boiling phase?

Im using the "turkey fryer" like most homebrewers.
And I brewed a blonde that turned out to look morel like a brown.
Its got a very heavy smoke flavor not expected at all.

I dont remember the exact ingredients but here is a best guess:

1lb Wheat
1/2lb Crystal

1.5oz hops (cant remember what I used..)

Anyway back to the meat of this question.

This was my first time brewing with Dry extract...

I mixed it in slowly, and it had a great honey color!
Added the specialty grains (steeped at 155 for 30min)
Added the Hops at 45 and 5.
Cooled and pitched the yeast, racked to fermenter. And noticed it was a bit darker than expected.

I had it on a furious boil! I read somewhere on here that a full rolling boil was ideal. So I had it cranked up! Im wondering if it got to "Hot" during the boil...

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

On a side note, the beet was extremely bitter. I gave it 2 months in bottles before trying to drink it again. Its pretty good now, but its still a bit bitter...

Thanks guys!
Josh

some of the dme might have settled when you added it in, and burned

A lot of people add extract near the end of the boil to prevent it from darkening in the kettle.

The liquid itself won't get too much above 100°C - a few degrees more due to boiling point elevation, but if the heat on the bottom of the pot is very intense you can run the risk of scorching/burning the sugars.

I always turn off my fire before I add extracts and sugars. They will burn fast.

You gave a nice detailed list of what you did, but I noticed you didn't mention anywhere if you topped off to the correct volume when you transferred into the primary (I am assuming you did, but if not that could have been a problem) Also the intense boil may have lead to increased hops utilization "over bittering" the beer, the sort of it is yes you can over do it with the boil, you really just want a gentle rolling boil, or you can burn the sugar as well, it sounds like you got a little of both (more likely sugar burning).

Thanks guys, that's kind of what I thought was going on. I might try adding it later in the boil I like that. I did top it off to the correct volume it probably was the sugar that got burnt I never thought of that before.

I listened to an episode of "Brew Strong" where Jamil and John discussed the boil, and they noted that many homebrewers overdo the boil. They described the ideal boil as a steady rolling over of the wort, without any of it jumping up off the surface. More specifically, they detailed the optimal boiloff rate as somewhere between 8% and 13% of the wort volume per hour (not 100% certain on those #s). Any more and you get excessive melanoidin formation. Any less and you don't boil off all of the sulfur-containing compounds that form DMS. They recommend a 90 minute boil for those styles that should be more melanoidin-rich.
Check out the podcast here: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/600

Great info! Thanks for the podcast, i'll check it out later tonight.

I 'm gonna try to ease up on my next boil. I've done 15+ batches now and this was the first time I uped the heat.