15 minute boil for extract pale ale?

The main reason extract kits call for longer boils is to get better utilization out of the hops. Since it's only necessary to add the bulk of the extract in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil, this got me to wondering if anyone's done a very short boil with a ton of hops to make a really quick, really hoppy pale ale?

You're not worrying about boiling off volatiles or hot break too much because the process of making extract takes care of a lot of that for you. The only downside I can see to this technique would be spending more on hops, but I've done all-grain hop burst pale ales with only 20 minute-flameout additions in a full length boil, so the only thing I'd be losing here is about 45 minutes from the boil time (and the rest of the process if you usually do all-grain).

If you steep the specialty grains as you're heating up the liquor and remove them once you get to ~170* and add the extract right then, I can see a brew day for this simple recipe lasting all of two hours from the time you put the kettle on the burner to pitching and cleanup. I've seen a few recipes around for 30 minute pale ales, so I'm wondering if you can push that to the extreme if you go with extract.

The guys from basic brewing do a 15 minute amarillo pale ale. I was feeling quite lazy and tried this method, it made a mighty fine pale ale. I usually have a few pounds of cascade in the freezer so i just subbed cascade for the amarillo.

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=15-minute-amarillo-ale

On a recent Brew Strong podcast, Jamil mentions doing a 15 minute extract beer. He used pre-hopped extract. Everyone on the show said it was a good beer.

Well it's good to know if I'm not original, I'm also not crazy. I'll give this a shot in the coming weeks and let everyone know how it turns out.

I thought you needed at least a 45 minute boil to get the bitter goodness out of the lupins in the hops...

Hopbursting is becoming a popular technique. It involves adding most or all of your hops in the last 10-15 minutes of the boil.

I thought you needed at least a 45 minute boil to get the bitter goodness out of the lupins in the hops

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Boiling for any amount of time will cause some isomerization of the alpha acids. The peak of the utilization curve is at just about an hour, so that has become our reference standard boil time. You will still get some bittering from shorter boils, such as with hopbursting, but you need more hops to achieve the same ibus as the longer boil.

You can also buy pre-hopped extract, as Jamil did, which just has sort of a generic bitter flavor.