Please explain- adding DME late in boil?...

Recently I've seen many people talk about adding half or most of the DME at the end of the boil and/or flame out? This is new to me, what are the main reasons for doing this? Avoiding caramelized DME, hop utz? I've only ever brewed with my father inlaw and never seen this done. Thanks in advance.

I've done this for a Wit that I did when I brewed extract. I did it to keep the wheat "haze" you have with wheat type beers. Better hop utz is what I've been told plus if your making a lighter ale or a blonde and you've steeped your grains late addition of DME can keep your wort from caramelizing. I honestly don't know if I answered you I have a hangover.

igotworts said:

Recently I've seen many people talk about adding half or most of the DME at the end of the boil and/or flame out? This is new to me, what are the main reasons for doing this? Avoiding caramelized DME, hop utz? I've only ever brewed with my father inlaw and never seen this done. Thanks in advance.

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I just heard about this on a podcast the other day. They were saying that it's a good thing to do when doing a partial boil, so that you get better (and closer to intended) hop utilization. Then you put in the remaining DME with about 15 min to go just to sanitize and get a homogenous mixture.

Other than that, I don't know why you'd do that.

FWIW, Charlie Papazian (in response to a letter to Zymurgy I think) said he doesn't get why you would do it, would not do it himself, and doesn't recommend doing it.

Main reason I have heard is to reduce carmelization, especially in lighter beers. I really don't get how would you get better hop utilization. If you boil hops in water, you get way less utilization. I brew all grain, so am I getting worse utilization? I don't think so. It seems you would get WORSE utilization with a lower concentration of wort. Just my opinion, I'd love for someone to chime in with a more scientific argument rather than just opinion and hearsay...

TANSTAAFB said:

FWIW, Charlie Papazian (in response to a letter to Zymurgy I think) said he doesn't get why you would do it, would not do it himself, and doesn't recommend doing it.

Main reason I have heard is to reduce carmelization, especially in lighter beers. I really don't get how would you get better hop utilization. If you boil hops in water, you get way less utilization. I brew all grain, so am I getting worse utilization? I don't think so. It seems you would get WORSE utilization with a lower concentration of wort. Just my opinion, I'd love for someone to chime in with a more scientific argument rather than just opinion and hearsay...

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If you've ever seen the tinseth IBU calculation it is based on wort OG. the theory is that in a more concentrated boil there is less utilization. it does apply to using less water, but ive seen (dont have the link anymore) results where they added all extract up front and varied amounts later and the measured IBUs showed no difference. IIRC, the new thought is that its not the actually OG of the wort, but it has something to do with hot break material. so whether hop utilization actually changes or not with late adds I dunno, but they definitely keep a lighter brew.

Does it have to be a late addition of DME or could it be LME as well? What if you use all LME + speciality grains? Can you use a half LME at the beginning of the boil and the other half at the and?

Scooby_Brew said:

Does it have to be a late addition of DME or could it be LME as well? What if you use all LME + speciality grains? Can you use a half LME at the beginning of the boil and the other half at the and?

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either type works

That's what my understanding was as well. I do see a big difference in color of the beer when you do all extract in the beginning of the boil and when you do half-and-half.
Half-and-half is much lighter shade, very similar (same?) to the color of all-grain.

i agree with all most comments. I brewed 20 extract beers my first year. I learned about lated addition of extract after about 10 batches and now i do it religiously. My reasons are as follows:
Color - i find the beer comes out much closer adding half the DME/LME late.
Extract twang - this is somthing i expereinced on about 33% of my extract beers. This completly went away after i started to put 1/2 my ME in late.
Hop utilization - not a big difference for me. I have 2 bers i alsways have on tap, i brewed each of them with late and traditional additiions of ME - me and my friends couldnt notice the difference - it might be different for beers with a bigger hop bill.