Advantage of a short boil?

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Todd

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I watched basic brewing the other day and they did a 20 minute boil, in order to get the right IBU he doubled the normal 60 addition. I was thinking this would be a way to save some time and propane.

Any thoughts?

We get bulk hops so the added cost is very small.
 
orfy said:
You'll need super efficiency to get the OG required into the batch size. Either that or go for a smaller beer.
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You mean because of the boil down? What about on the hop side? See any problem with it?
 
That may be difficult to predict. I'm sure that with experimentation, you could get some good results.
Are you brewing AG? If you are, your beer may have clarity issues with such a short boil, since your hot break may not have had time to coagulate fully. It doesn't seem worth the trouble to me.
 
Yes because of the boil down. As for the hops You could FWH and use more. But I think you'd be struggling at 20 minutes, 40 minutes maybe. Given you'd probably have to up the grain bill then I think you will be forfeiting too much for the sake of saving 40 minutes.
You could do a hop tea whilst the mash is on to get some IBUs to add at the start of the boil.

I have just done a full AG batch from start to finish inc. set up, recipe formulation, brewing and clean up in under 3.5 hours.
I really don't think any one should be attempting AG if they don't have a half day spare to do it. Most people would put a full day to one side but I'm now confident I can do it easily in a morning, afternoon or evening.
 
Chairman Cheyco said:
That may be difficult to predict. I'm sure that with experimentation, you could get some good results.
Are you brewing AG? If you are, your beer may have clarity issues with such a short boil, since your hot break may not have had time to coagulate fully. It doesn't seem worth the trouble to me.
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I'm planning some experiments by splitting my 5G batch into to smaller batches and playing with different hops and technics, I was hoping to save some time. It will be all grain.

Thanks for the input.
 
Todd said:
I'm planning some experiments by splitting my 5G batch into to smaller batches and playing with different hops and technics, I was hoping to save some time. It will be all grain.

Thanks for the input.
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Do you really need to do a brew in under 3.5 hours?
 
orfy said:
Yes because of the boil down. As for the hops You could FWH and use more. But I think you'd be struggling at 20 minutes, 40 minutes maybe. Given you'd probably have to up the grain bill then I think you will be forfeiting too much for the sake of saving 40 minutes.
You could do a hop tea whilst the mash is on to get some IBUs to add at the start of the boil.

I have just done a full AG batch from start to finish inc. set up, recipe formulation, brewing and clean up in under 3.5 hours.
I really don't think any one should be attempting AG if they don't have a half day spare to do it. Most people would put a full day to one side but I'm now confident I can do it easily in a morning, afternoon or evening.
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The show I watched said at 60 minutes you normally get 30% utilization and at 20 minutes you get 15% so if you at twice the hops you should get the same bitterness out of it.
 
orfy said:
Do you really need to do a brew in under 3.5 hours?
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haha, no, I spend about 4 hours normally, but if I need to do 2 1 hour boils it takes a bit more time and also used a lot more propane.

Again I'm just thinking of options.
 
If you need to then use more grain and hops and possibly compromise quality but I'd personally rather put off till a day when I'm not pushed for the 40 minutes and save the money an relax a little more.

Experimentation is good, I try to push boundaries myself.
I'm all for saving time but not at the cost of $$$ and quality.

Yep more propane but I get 6 Batches from £14 tank. Or £2.30 per batch. if I reduce by 30% per brew then that's £0.79 which is less than an increase in hops and grain would cost.

Interesting debate though.

How long are you mashing for?
 
Todd said:
The show I watched said at 60 minutes you normally get 30% utilization and at 20 minutes you get 15% so if you at twice the hops you should get the same bitterness out of it.
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That may be true but you'll end up with a ton of hop flavor. That's fine for an IPA or something like that, but a dry stout or just about every German style for instance will not be able to tolerate that much hop flavor.
 
orfy said:
If you need to then use more grain and hops and possibly compromise quality but I'd personally rather put off till a day when I'm not pushed for the 40 minutes and save the money an relax a little more.

Experimentation is good, I try to push boundaries myself.
I'm all for saving time but not at the cost of $$$ and quality.

Yep more propane but I get 6 Batches from £14 tank. Or £2.30 per batch. if I reduce by 30% per brew then that's £0.79 which is less than an increase in hops and grain would cost.

Interesting debate though.

How long are you mashing for?
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I normally mash for an hour. Another benefit would be you are getting a ton more flavor hops. In an IPA this could be really good.

Perhaps we can change this a bit, what would everyone think about late hop addition, still maintain the same IBU. Cost wise I think we paid $.60 per once of Cascade so Adding an extra ounce is barely any cost.

For example if you normally add 1oz at 60 - 20 - 5 you would add 3oz at 20 and 1 at 5.
 
Todd said:
I normally mash for an hour. Another benefit would be you are getting a ton more flavor hops. In an IPA this could be really good.

Perhaps we can change this a bit, what would everyone think about late hop addition, still maintain the same IBU. Cost wise I think we paid $.60 per once of Cascade so Adding an extra ounce is barely any cost.

For example if you normally add 1oz at 60 - 20 - 5 you would add 3oz at 20 and 1 at 5.
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Try it, it's the only way to know if it'll work for you. That's how people push forward brewing techniques.
but it's not for me. I'd rather cut mashing by 20 minutes.
A late hop addition will increase aroma and maybe little flavour maybe but won't add to the bitterness.

I don;t know of anyone doing full AG brewing that boils for less than 60 minutes. That's probably for a good reason.
 
orfy said:
Try it, it's the only way to know if it'll work for you. That's how people push forward brewing techniques.
but it's not for me. I'd rather cut mashing by 20 minutes.
A late hop addition will increase aroma and maybe little flavour maybe but won't add to the bitterness.

I don;t know of anyone doing full AG brewing that boils for less than 60 minutes. That's probably for a good reason.
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I'm fine with not doing a short boil. What I ment in this post was what about doing a full length boil but just add the hops late? I should be able to get the same bitterness with more flavor.

I'm planning some small test batches so I'll have to add this to the list of things to try.

Do you guys know if I could store wort in a gallon water jug in the fridge for up to a week? I'd like to split a full batch into 5 1 gallon mini batches to try different hops and different hop technics.
 
Storing wort will be fine if it's in a sanitised airtight container in the fridge.

I'm sure some one more experience answer about getting bitterness from late hop additions.
 
I did a whack of hops at 20minutes brew without any 60 minute bittering hops and it was really good. The only thing I found was that the IBU calcs supplied by promash were way off. It was much more bitter than the exact same batch I did with a traditional hop schedule. Both recipes supposedly had the same IBUs, according to promash.
 
Chairman Cheyco said:
I did a whack of hops at 20minutes brew without any 60 minute bittering hops and it was really good. The only thing I found was that the IBU calcs supplied by promash were way off. It was much more bitter than the exact same batch I did with a traditional hop schedule. Both recipes supposedly had the same IBUs, according to promash.
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Thanks, this is on the list of things to try. I'm still new at this so the more I can understand how variable effect the final product the better.
 
orfy said:
Have you tried the first wort hopping thing?
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Yep, I have a beer we just bottled, i did 2oz of cascade FWH then followed the normal schedule. I'm very anxious to try it. Unfortunately I have no way to tell exactly what the FWH added. That is the main reason for wanting to split a batch. If I FWH one and not the other then I can compare side by side what effect it has.

Right now I'm just concerned about making beer that tastes good, i mostly follow recipes. At some point I'd like to try my own thing which is when this knowledge will benefit me most.
 
A short boil could actually be an advantage for a lighter beer, but IMO if you want a complex taste profile, the longer the boil the more chance the brew has to develop it's full taste potential.

The secret to cooking meat is low temp, long time, best juiciest flavors, I guess I apply the same time factor to making malted grain based fermented beverages.
 
In TCJOHB there's a chart that states the max hop utilization of 30% is acquired when brewing 1 gal of water with 1 lb of malt and 1 oz of hops.

Further, at 30 mins you get 15% hop bitterness. With a 30 min boil you need to double your hops to get the full 30%.

I've done this before using the late extract addition method with success.;)
 
yeah I watched that show to, I thik they even prefered the shorter boil one during the taste test if I remember right. I think it is worth a try, but I do think it will depend on the beer you are doing
 
One other reason for the 60 minute boil is to hydrolyze SMM (S-methylmethionine) into DMS (Dimethylsulfate) and evaporate it off (one reason to leave the lid off your kettle). The half life for this is about 40min. Depending on the style of beer you are brewing the shorter boil could leave you with excessive DMS resulting in that "cooked corn" off-flavor.
 
Got Trub? said:
One other reason for the 60 minute boil is to hydrolyze SMM (S-methylmethionine) into DMS (Dimethylsulfate) and evaporate it off (one reason to leave the lid off your kettle). The half life for this is about 40min. Depending on the style of beer you are brewing the shorter boil could leave you with excessive DMS resulting in that "cooked corn" off-flavor.
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I've never had a corn flavored brew yet.

Does that description apply to extract brewing, AG, or both?
 

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