When to add late addition?

I plan on having a brew day today . I want to change up my technique a little bit and do a late addition since I will be making a lighter beer. My kit came with two 3.3 lbs. containers of LME. I have seen many different recommendations of how to do the late addition. For example 1/2 at initial then 1/2 at 15 minutes, 20% at initial 80% around 20 minutes, and all other sorts of combos.

Does it really matter how much. I know I want to have some extract to aid in hops utilization. So does this plan sound right, my first 3.3 lbs of wheat LME at the initial boil, then the second 3.3 lbs of pilsner extract with about 15 minutes remaining?

The amount of extract to add initially depends on your boil size. For the best hop utilization, a good guideline is to target a 1.040 gravity in your boil. Assuming you are doing a 2.5G boil, adding the 3.3# initially will get you close to that I think. I don't have my beersmith handy so this won't be exact, but close enough. (If your beers target OG=1.040, then 1/2 the boil amt using 1/2 the extract = 1.040)

The remainder of the extract can be added at the end of the boil -- either with 5-10 minutes remaining or even at flameout. I tend to try to at least boil it for a couple minutes to 'sanitize' it a bit, but have also done flameout additions with no problems.

Keep in mind if you haven't previously been doing late extract additions, without changing your boil size, your hop utilization will increase so you will want to cut your bittering hops by approximately 20-25% -- unless of course, you want the extra bitterness

That would work fine. The extract has already been boiled in it's processing, so all you need to do is make sure it's boiled again to kill any random bugs. So, I would recommend adding a small portion, around 20%, initially for hops utilization, and then the remainder at 15 or 10 minutes, just enough time to get it to a boil again.

DirtyPolock said:

I plan on having a brew day today . I want to change up my technique a little bit and do a late addition since I will be making a lighter beer. My kit came with two 3.3 lbs. containers of LME. I have seen many different recommendations of how to do the late addition. For example 1/2 at initial then 1/2 at 15 minutes, 20% at initial 80% around 20 minutes, and all other sorts of combos.

Does it really matter how much. I know I want to have some extract to aid in hops utilization. So does this plan sound right, my first 3.3 lbs of wheat LME at the initial boil, then the second 3.3 lbs of pilsner extract with about 15 minutes remaining?

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It really depends on what you want in the finished product. Late additions (30 minutes before the end of the boil and beyond) will mainly influence flavour and aroma (aroma is really 15 minutes and beyond). Before will mainly be bittering. That is rough - there is obviously crossover with all three but essentially early = bitter, mid = flavour, late = aroma.

You can add hops all the way through (eg 60, 20, 0 minute additions) or you can focus on the bittering (single 60 or 45 addition - often done with english style malty ales) or you can focus on flavour and aroma and do a hopburst (adding later hops in very frequent intervals - eg: 5g@30, 5g@25, 5g@ 20, 5g@15, 5g@ 10, 5g@0).

The above suggestion of a 1040 wort is usually what's recommended. This will give optimum hop utilisation (ie: a balance between smooth/not harsh and good amounts of bittering compounds).

Also research your BU/GU ratio (bittering units:Gravity Units). There are suggested ranges available that are pertinent to particular styles.

From what I understand utilization only measures the amount of bittering (alpha acids) you can extract from a given quantity of hops and that would lead me to conclude that flavoring and aroma are less dependent on boil gravity and utilization. Is this correct?

What I mean is, does that mean that the boil gravity is really only a factor for bittering, and does having a higher gravity wort during the end of the boil (becuase of the late extract addition) detract from the extraction of flavoring and aroma compounds from the hops?

I feel this is relevant to the topic because if gravity also affects flavor and aroma that would mean, since extract really only needs to be sanitized by the boil, you could add it even later say 5-7 mins before knock out instead of 15-20 which is commonly advocated.

Thanks for the info. What I am making today is the lawnmower de saison from midwest brewing. The main purpose of me trying the late addition of extract today is to hopefully keep a lighter color. Here is how I have been boiling so far and the hop plan for today:

- Partial boil of around 3.5 gallons because this is my biggest pot
- 3.3 lbs of LME wheat extract
- 1 oz. Saaz @ 60 min
- 1 oz. US goldings @ 30 min
- 3.3 lbs of LME pilsner extract @ 10 or 15 min
- 1 oz. US goldings @ 5 min

This kit also comes with some extra additives of grains of paradise, bitter orange peel, corainder, and clear candi sugar, so this is why I am excited for this brew as I haven't done anything outside of Reinheitsgebot yet. So the additives and a late addition will be the new process for me. If anybody has any change in comments based on this info let me know. I'll try playing with some numbers in a beer calculator to see what values will change.

I'm excited for this brew but also disappointed that I have to wait so long to drink it. Thankfully I have a batch that is 1 week into bottle conditioning to keep me happy

Well if anybody is curious as to how it turned out here is a link to a my hydrometer test sample. I followed the plan mentioned above. It looks great to me.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tJ0fStU6iUrjvNYQtQJIFw?feat=directlink

Sorry I don't have enough posts to directly add a pic yet.

I put in 'a little bit' at the beginning and 'the rest' at 10 minutes. Those are my super scientific measurements.

Works so far