boiling in a vacuum vessel

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IowaHarry

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At work we have evaporators and reduce the boiling point by pulling a vacuum on the vessel. If I make a vacuum vessel to boil my wort at home and the wort boils at a lower temperature how will that affect hop utilization?

Do hops have to be boiled at 212f/100c to get all the goody out of them?
 
the makers of lme and dme use a vacumn chamber to 'boil off' the liquid and concentrate the wort bcause your not changing the color from tru boiling.
 
It will affect hop utilization and sanitation negatively.

I agree. also it would be hard to keep under vac pressure because the boiling wort is converting water to vapor which would increase the pressure so you would need it under a constant vac.

on the other hand i think your hops bitter your beer quicker the the wort was under pressure and boiling at a higher temp. but i dont know any method to boil under pressure and also release the DMS from the wort.
 
I don't see how it would impact sanitation. I run a sterilizer at work where the product is jacked to 300f for about 20 seconds. Even if I reached a boiling temp of 170f. It is still going to take quite a while to finish. I would think 170 for even 45 minutes would wack any bugs. Ok, maybe thermophiles but it should still be real close to getting them as well.

As for DMS, I don't really understand what it is or what it takes to liberate it to drive it off.
 
DMS would be fine with a vacuum system, probably not a pressurized one though. I've always wanted to do this, because if I could get the boiling temp down to say 150F, you could in theory mash and boil (decoct) at the same time.
 
Yeah, in a given system if you could acheive a boiling temp of 150f you could raise the boiling temp by just loosing vacuum to get to the 170f equivalent but you would still have to apply heat to get a boil there. Just not as much as a 212f boil.

Gee, just think of all the money we could save on fuel. This will be the next step in the evolution of the home brewing system.

"Hey buddy, how much vacuum does yer system pull?"

Now we'll have to think up an acronym for a vacuum driven system.
 
This is a pretty cool idea. setting the vacuum so that you could boil and mash at 154.. not sure what would happen with the DMS, but it would be wort a shot. Maybe make a hop tea in a pressure cooker with some DME if utilization is a concern.
 
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