ThickHead
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- Joined
- Oct 4, 2008
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While brewing my latest batch of IPA I had a revelation...
Since I was going to be making this batch so hop-heavy (extract batch) I wanted to steap and boil as much wort volume as possible. Additionally, I wanted to make this batch a 6+ gal batch as opposed to my typical 5 gal batches because I am going to dry-hop with 3 oz of whole-leaf hops. I have a 4 gal pot that I typically work with on an electric stove. I filled the pot to around 2 inches from the rim and began the steap (knowing I was pushing my luck given the boil-ups of my previous batches). 6 lbs of LME and 2 lbs of DME were really going to push the volume very near the rim of my pot.
As I was bringing my temp up towards boil from steaping temp I remembered my LHBS owner's advice about bringing the temp up slowly. After thinking about that for a moment I decided to pour in both the LME and DME prior to the wort reaching it's boiling point (my previous batches all tried to boil over during and close after DME addition at boiling temp).
The result was that the wort never came close to boiling over whatsoever. I boiled nearly 4 gal of wort with 6.5 oz of hop additions during the 60 min and the only wort that ever left the pot was from a few large rolling boil bubbles. Now the technique I described is probably one that many, many people already follow or even intuitively follow from the beginning of their brewing days. I, however, just stumbled across it and it really made my day and has been marked down as a fantastic Lesson Learned!
Since I was going to be making this batch so hop-heavy (extract batch) I wanted to steap and boil as much wort volume as possible. Additionally, I wanted to make this batch a 6+ gal batch as opposed to my typical 5 gal batches because I am going to dry-hop with 3 oz of whole-leaf hops. I have a 4 gal pot that I typically work with on an electric stove. I filled the pot to around 2 inches from the rim and began the steap (knowing I was pushing my luck given the boil-ups of my previous batches). 6 lbs of LME and 2 lbs of DME were really going to push the volume very near the rim of my pot.
As I was bringing my temp up towards boil from steaping temp I remembered my LHBS owner's advice about bringing the temp up slowly. After thinking about that for a moment I decided to pour in both the LME and DME prior to the wort reaching it's boiling point (my previous batches all tried to boil over during and close after DME addition at boiling temp).
The result was that the wort never came close to boiling over whatsoever. I boiled nearly 4 gal of wort with 6.5 oz of hop additions during the 60 min and the only wort that ever left the pot was from a few large rolling boil bubbles. Now the technique I described is probably one that many, many people already follow or even intuitively follow from the beginning of their brewing days. I, however, just stumbled across it and it really made my day and has been marked down as a fantastic Lesson Learned!