Early/Late Extract Additions in PM Brewing?

So, I've been brewing for 2 years now, and I've been doing partial mashes for a while, but somehow I've missed an entire concept in the process:

EARLY/LATE EXTRACT ADDITIONS


So, what's up with this in relation to hop utilization? I've been doing full boils for a while, and I dump all my DME in after sparging, and then add a tad bit of hot water to make sure I'm at my correct pre-boil volume. Then I go through the full boil as normal.

I have yet to notice anything weird about my beer. I brewed a Citra IPA recently and the color was perfect, wasnt real dark (ie. carmelization) and I didn't notice anything weird with the hop flavor.

Anyways, I'm brewing a Pecan Brown Porter when I get home from work today, and I'm wondering: should I change my methods? What gives with this early/late addition strategy? Any diff in taste? Any carmelization I imagine would be hard to notice in a porter, or it would complement it.

From my experience, LME has a much higher tendency for this carmelazation. If you use DME then I don't believe it has as much of an effect. Hop utilization is affected by the gravity of the boil. If you used just water you would get more significant utilization. Overall if you're making good beer then don't change your methods. If you notice problems and are unhappy then make a change, but I say don't change a good thing

gstrawn said:

From my experience, LME has a much higher tendency for this carmelazation. If you use DME then I don't believe it has as much of an effect. Hop utilization is affected by the gravity of the boil. If you used just water you would get more significant utilization. Overall if you're making good beer then don't change your methods. If you notice problems and are unhappy then make a change, but I say don't change a good thing

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I guess it would make sense that LME carmelizes, since it was created by boiling down wort, essentially, in the first place. It'd be like roasting an already-roasted turkey. It's eventually gonna just dry out and burn up.

Yeah, I can't imagine hop utilization is gonna be an issue. This is a 1.055 OG porter, and I bought an extra oz of hops just in case I wanted to add more.

My main concern for this brew has been my pecans. I home-roasted them 3x and I think I'm gonna make 1 more pass on them to try to get a little bit more oil off them before putting them in the mash. Roasting them over and over is a tricky process, because I have to do it at lower temps and time for each additional roasting.

I also think a big part of it is that you are doing full boils. I do a late extract addition because I can only do half boils, so if I were to add the dme at the start I'd be boiling a wort of about 1.1 for an average strength beer. The high gravity is what is going to lead to caramelization and drastic changes in hop utilization. Instead, I've got to just boil the wort from the mash and leave the dme out so that my boil gravity is around 1.05 until the end when I can add in the dme.

Since you are doing full boils, I don't see a lot of benefit to a late addition. You might get a slightly higher hop utilization, but unless you are doing huge batches its probably not enough to save you much cash. Plus, I always hate having to pull my pot off the heat while I try to get all the dme dissolved, losing a bunch of heat in the process. If you can avoid that hassle and just do it at the start, I'd keep doing it .

Yeah, I made the porter last night. I brewed it using my usual partial mash methods. I was even somewhat reckless and didn't make sure pre-boil topoff volume was correct, and yet I nailed my OG spot-on when I put it in the fermenter.

I usually am not one to drink wort since it's so sweet, but the combination of the pecan flavor and the roasty malt/chocolate taste to it were absolutely incredible. I can't wait to see how this beer turns out. I'm just crossing my fingers that I extracted enough oils from the pecans in order to have a head.

Late additions aren't needed for full boils. In that one way, it's just like all grain in that all of your fermentables will be there at the start of the boil.