All grain boiling

So my buddies and I did an AG Pale Ale today, and I thought we did everything right. But I was watching a youtube video that said when you boil AG wort you should keep the kettle lid off so things can burn off or what have you. We left ours on... is our beer going to die? (or just taste awful)

Thanks for the help

Leaving the lid off will allow more evaporation during the boil. If you had pilsner malt in the mash, it would also allow the DMS precursers to boil off. I wouldn't worry about it too much, it doesn't matter as much as some may lead you to believe.

I leave the lid off, but most of the boil kettles aren't totally open to atmosphere either. They have a chimney (for lack of a better word) at the top for vapor.

If you get vegetal, canned corn, or other unpleasant sulphury flavours then taking your lid off during the boil, extending the boil to 90min when using a pils malt, and cooling the wort post boil as quickly as possible will fix it.

Yeah, all malted barely will produce DMS which needs to be boiled off. Pale malt just has that much more DMS potential and needs a longer boil.

it might be ok, but as stated if it tastes of cooked cabbage/vegetables...the lid use is why.
and its not going to age out.

bah, that stinks. Hopefully it tastes ok. otherwise I'll just have a different batch started next week. No worries. Thanks guys

malkore said:

Yeah, all malted barely will produce DMS which needs to be boiled off. Pale malt just has that much more DMS potential and needs a longer boil.

it might be ok, but as stated if it tastes of cooked cabbage/vegetables...the lid use is why.
and its not going to age out.

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+1 every malt produces DMS to some degree, and yours likely didn't boil it off. But it also isn't as big a problem as some would say (as noted above by onthekeg)

I made a bunch of extract beers that I boiled with the lid on, and while they weren't great they certainly didn't taste or smell like canned corn.

There's only one way to find out how yours will be...wait....But let us know the result PLEASE.

Would Maris Otter fall under the category of high DMS producing malts?

Gremlyn1 said:

Would Maris Otter fall under the category of high DMS producing malts?

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I think the thing is All malts have the precursors to produce DMS because it is a degradation product of amino acids that are exposed to high heat. any grain used will produce DMS at temps above 170ºF and at 212ºF the DMS will gas out. It is the level of modification that determines the amount of DMS that a grain will be able to produce. because the kilning process, uses high heat to modifies grains, that will also produce and remove DMS, it also darkens the grain. so the lighter the malt, the less modified the malt, the more you will have to worry about DMS, so the longer you should boil...With the lid off

I think Maris Otter is fairly modified, and does not produce a lot of DMS

WorryWort said:

I made a bunch of extract beers that I boiled with the lid on, and while they weren't great they certainly didn't taste or smell like canned corn.

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Extracts have a lot, if not all, of the boil off by products removed already.

Alrighty, this beer wont be bottled or ready to drink for a couple/few weeks but I'll be sure to fill you guys in. Hopefully there is no infection or any of that good stuff. Thanks for all of the help.

Okay boys, so the beer is carbed and drinkable. As promised I am reporting back. Honestly I can't pick out any super off taste at all. At the finish there seems to be a high alcoholic taste but that's it. Other than that the beer is fantastic. Thanks for the help!

AlexMoran said:

Okay boys, so the beer is carbed and drinkable. As promised I am reporting back. Honestly I can't pick out any super off taste at all. At the finish there seems to be a high alcoholic taste but that's it. Other than that the beer is fantastic. Thanks for the help!

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I would think that if you boiled off water volume, then you boiled off a lot of DMS precursors.

Gremlyn1 said:

Would Maris Otter fall under the category of high DMS producing malts?

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In general, the lighter color the malt the more SMM (the precursor of DMS) it will contain. MO has SMM, but not as much as pils malt.