Any point to boiling AG?

Hey. I was just wondering if there is any point to boiling All Grain recipes other than to reduce the amount of water and raise the OG?

If I made a hop tea and did hop additions to boiling water (while reducing the amounts to account for the higher AA yield), and then added that water as a part of my second infusion, would the result be any different?

Is there any reason you need to boil the wort?

And sterilize the water, who knows where those grains have been

EDIT: Also, if you mash and sparge with proper amounts of water you are going to have about 7 gals of water... you need to boil some of that off like you mentioned.

seefresh said:

And sterilize the water, who knows where those grains have been

EDIT: Also, if you mash and sparge with proper amounts of water you are going to have about 7 gals of water... you need to boil some of that off like you mentioned.

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Pasteurization is at 140 degrees. Mash temps are higher than that. There should be no sanitation issues there.

In my experience I've found that the boiling of the mash increases the carmel flavor (barleywines, scotch ales) especially when using lots of crystal malts. I also like the simplicity of "boil water, add hops", I've never tried making hop tea. Another factor to think about is hop utilization, even the shape of your kettle can affect that.

Hmm, 140 eh? Didn't know that.

That's kindof an odd question: why not boil it? Wouldn't you need to boil a hop tea for just as long to get decent AA extraction for bittering? What is saved by not boiling? (Not needing a large boiling pot, I guess.)

Also, the hot break removes protiens and starches from the wort, leading to a clearer product, right? I imagine unboiled beer would be very cloudy.

Toot said:

Pasteurization is at 140 degrees. Mash temps are higher than that. There should be no sanitation issues there.

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Pasteurization is not sterilization. Pasteurization is not intended to kill all micro-organisms.

I wouldn't take the chance.

Reducing the volume is a requirement for all grain, simply because you need to sparge with excess water to get all of the sugars out. Other reasons have been listed. Many spores can survive pasturization, but few can handle 60 minutes of boiling.

It seems as though you are also suggesting boiling/hopping the sparge water, not sure why you would do that. You would have to cool it off before adding it to the mash and it wouldn't really make any difference to the bittering levels.

I'd say give it a try and report back.

This was just posted by AdIN in another thread... seems relevant to this one as well:

Good rolling boil also required in order to coagulate proteins in your wort and create good hot break material. As Kadmium said it also required to get rid of diacetyl, for that boil with 10-15% evaporation rate should be good enough. It means you can have cover partially on as long as you provide correct evaporation rate. And try to avoid condensations from the cover dripping back in to your wort.

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You're also missing the hot break which is way more important in all grain. Extract is already boiled prior to reduction so it's not as big a deal (or so I've heard). Damn, same time post.!!

Full boil is critical to all grain brewing. It is needed for numerous reasons, everything from hot break, to killing bacteria, hop utilization and the elimination of unwanted volitiles. To skip a boil is asking for cloudy, beer, with no hop character. Personally I don't think that sounds too tasty.

Always boil.

Brewpastor said:

...and the elimination of unwanted volitiles

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DMS being one of the major ones...and the reason you don't want to boil with the lid on.

And won't hop utilization be a big factor here too? You aren't going to get the hop character in a tea.

This is kinda funny. You'd think that, after thousands of years of evolution, the practice of brewing beer would have ferreted out most of the unnecessary elements of brewing. People think way too much about how to shortcut this process; those thousands of years of evolution have certainly exposed most of the shortcuts and then tested them ad nauseum, technological equipment developments notwithstanding. Little things here and there save you time, but cutting out a huge step like boiling your wort is not something that would have gone unnoticed this long.

There has been boiling of beer/wort for hundreds if not thousands of years. In my opinion You are asking for trouble. Lets not try and re-invent the wheel.

Plus...you do away with a good full-kettle boil, you've just eliminated the fun part. If I can't do my wort-boil dance, I don't feel complete...

Evan! said:

This is kinda funny. You'd think that, after thousands of years of evolution, the practice of brewing beer would have ferreted out most of the unnecessary elements of brewing. People think way too much about how to shortcut this process; those thousands of years of evolution have certainly exposed most of the shortcuts and then tested them ad nauseum, technological equipment developments notwithstanding. Little things here and there save you time, but cutting out a huge step like boiling your wort is not something that would have gone unnoticed this long.

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Blind adherence to rules versus questioning them. There are many things, thousands of years old, that get discussed, not because the answer is unclear, but because getting to the answer is enlightening.

Toot said:

Blind adherence to rules versus questioning them. There are many things, thousands of years old, that get discussed, not because the answer is unclear, but because getting to the answer is enlightening.

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I never said we should unquestioningly follow directions and tradition just for the sake of it. There's plenty of religious folk who can fill THAT role quite easily . Hell, I do a few things myself that aren't traditional practices, but save me time and/or effort. All I was saying was that it is sort of amusing to me when someone questions the necessity of one of, if not THE, biggest parts of the process. It's called "brewing", and they question the "brew" part. Like I said, don't get me wrong; I'm all for questioning traditional methodology in an attempt to evolve and improve the process...and I meant no disrespect whatsoever. But it wouldn't really be brewing with the "brew"...no-boil kits notwithstanding.

Aren't no-boil kits child's play? No offense intended...

Also to add to what everyone has said, AA's have to have something to hold on to, you can get away with small amounts in water but to hold anything really above 35-40 you need to have some gravity to the process. Besides balencing out the beer there is a reason for gravities being so high on IIPA's and such. To hold all the IBU's that a person would want in those beers you need a heck of alot of GU's.

I'm pretty sure Berliner Weisse is not boiled, but it's the only example I've heard of and is apparently quite a sour beer. I do think it is held at a high, but sub-boiling temperature long enough to kill of most micros.

sause said:

Also to add to what everyone has said, AA's have to have something to hold on to, you can get away with small amounts in water but to hold anything really above 35-40 you need to have some gravity to the process. Besides balencing out the beer there is a reason for gravities being so high on IIPA's and such. To hold all the IBU's that a person would want in those beers you need a heck of alot of GU's.

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Huh

Seriously, everything I've read says that high gravity hinders the release of alpha acids from hops. So from that, I assumed that low gravity (eg, water) would be the ideal carrier for alpha acids...


Is that wrong?

Toot said:

Huh

Seriously, everything I've read says that high gravity hinders the release of alpha acids from hops. So from that, I assumed that low gravity (eg, water) would be the ideal carrier for alpha acids...


Is that wrong?

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You're correct...lower gravity worts will have more capacity for alpha acids than higher gravity worts. I think perhaps what sause was getting at is that as your IBU's go up, you need more gravity/GU's to balance the flavor. But I'm still working on my first coffee

seefresh said:

This was just posted by AdIN in another thread... seems relevant to this one as well:

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Minor correction to that post, diacetyl is a fermentation byproduct and will not be present in your wort. He was probably thinking of DMS.

I don't know where the heck I read it but one study showed that lower gravity pulled more alpha out of the hops in a given time period but the maximum IBU actually goes up in higher gravity worts (with no consideration for time or quantity of hops added). If someone remembers reading what I'm talking about, post the link please.