Can I Boil Less than 60 Minutes?

Based on the kit I'm using (Dry Irish Stout,) and doing a full boil instead of partial, is there any reason why I NEED to boil for 60 minutes? If I'm getting the IBUs I'm aiming at with a single addition at 30 minutes, couldn't I just boil the wort for 30 instead of 60?

Am I missing something here, is there an essential reason why you must boil for 60?

If its just an extract kit and there are few steeping grains (assuming a little chocolate or black patent) and you are getting your IBU's, and you are topping off with water anyways, I don't see any need to boil for an hour. EDIT: I see you are doing a full boil... reduce your water so that you don't have to boil off as much to get to your batch size.

Cool. So, bittering happens at a half-hour as well as at an hour, if you are getting better utilization? It's not a big deal, then, to just shorten the boil, save time and save gas... that's GREAT news. I go through a lot of propane that would more than exceed the cost of hops saved if I shortened up on the hops bill.

superslomo said:

Cool. So, bittering happens at a half-hour as well as at an hour, if you are getting better utilization? It's not a big deal, then, to just shorten the boil, save time and save gas... that's GREAT news. I go through a lot of propane that would more than exceed the cost of hops saved if I shortened up on the hops bill.

Click to expand...

No, you won't get better utilization. You can just compensate for a shorter boil by using more bittering hops.

Basically, as per another post, the kit has 2 ounces of hops included, and I'm either going to save a half-ounce of hops in the freezer, or shorten the boil... if there's not reason to boil everything for a full hour, I'll just boil long enough to get the IBUs required.

Basically to your point: yes, but an inversion of the logic... I'm compensating for having too many hops measured out by shortening the boil as opposed to the way you put it.

As long as the character of the hops isn't changed by a half-hour boil in lieu of a full hour, I'm good to go...

Can someone point me to a good extract OPS recipe

dgerber: what's OPS, exactly? Forgive the stupid question, possibly... but...??