Idea to cut boil time - Thoughts?

I was thinking if I were to take a large sauce pan on the stove and boil it for an hour adding my hop additions per my recipe the night before. Cool the water in the fridge overnight. Then on brew day I would mash and sparge like normal but only boil my wort for 5 minutes to kill any nasties. Then dump the hop water into my fermenter and run my chilled wart on top of it. Any thoughts?

I know dms issues will be brought up... Any other issues?

DMS yes. IBU calculation is likely a problem. Boiling your hops in water isn't the same as boiling them in wort. Not sure what kind of hot and cold break you are going to get from this. I'm sure there are other volatile compounds that are reduced by boiling that I'm forgetting.

There's the issue of utilization, too. When boiling in a lower volume, only a portion of the oils will be able to dissolve into solution and isomerize. It's worth a try, though. I'd do two batches side by side and document your findings. But I'm sure there are plenty that will agree with me, it's doable, but you're sacrificing the quality of the final product.

To quote King Solomon, "There's nothing new under the sun."

The wort/water IBU thing was debunked by OSU about three years ago. The limiting factor is the concentration of hop resins, not sugars.

The only downside with IBUs is you are diluting the wort. If you go half and half, the maximum IBUs in the final beer will be around 50.

TZ - it's the resins that provide the bittering. The oils provide flavor and aroma. Hops are two very different ingredients in one package.

Seems to me you're not really saving time, you're just saving time on brewday. Plus there's always plenty of stuff to do during the boil like sanitze fermenters, clean the MLT, get your yeast ready to pitch and so on. I'm not saying don't do it, I just don't see that there's any real benefit.

The boil & hop additions are my favorite part of my brew day.
The only thing I try to cut back on is the amount of time it takes to bring water up to temperature.
During the winter, I keep a pot of water on top of the woodstove, which conveniently is around 170-180 most of the time.

I will give it a try. Its not so much about saving time, as it would be having the ability to break it up and do more the night before. It would be nice to be able to brew in less than 2 hours start to finish on brew day.. I would think I would do all my hop additions except the 5 minute one and maybe add that one to the wort for the 5 minutes I boil it?? Either way, it will be an interesting experiment...

Another possible use would be to conserve space in my boil and mash tun for bigger beers. I would not have to account for the extra 2+ gallons of boil off water.. Perhaps it would mess up my efficiency??? Hmmm

You would be using two gallons less water during mashing/sparge. This will extract less sugars from the grain. I often rely on boil off allowing me to use more water for higher gravity beers.

Interesting...not something I would do though for most of the above posted reasons. Also, I am actually trying to extend my brewday with 90-120 minute boils. I can bottle or transfer or whatever during the boil, I only do hopbursting so I am only adding any hops with 20 minutes or less...meaning I get about 1 1/2 to do what I want. Its really relaxing and I get everything done brew-wise during that day. Only makes my brewing day 4-5 hours as well with prep and cleanup...something I can live with.

Plenty of beer character is produced in a boil. Not only do you need a rolling boil to drive off DMS and oxygen, you are also creating the melanoidins which are present in some configuration/character in every beer. Skipping out on the boil is essentially skipping out on a step that adds characteristic mouthfeel and sweetness to all beer styles.

david_42 said:

The wort/water IBU thing was debunked by OSU about three years ago. The limiting factor is the concentration of hop resins, not sugars.

Click to expand...

Please explain. I'm interested in this.


QUOTE=david_42;4487134]The only downside with IBUs is you are diluting the wort. If you go half and half, the maximum IBUs in the final beer will be around 50.[/QUOTE]

You can get more than 100 IBUs in wort. It is the fermented beer that seems to be the limiting factor. A lot of the bitterness comes out with the kraeusen. I'm sure there is a limit, but it is not the 100 IBUs you are assuming.

I remember looking into this awhile back and read somewhere that there is a distinct advantage to boiling the hops in wort vs. plain water. I can't recall where I read it though. It seems if it were feasible, the commercial guys would be making hop teas and combining it with wort downstream. The boil takes a lot of energy and if it could be shortened, they would have found a way by now.

My experieince boiling hops in water is that you get a harsh, vegetal, nasty taste.

I'm not sure why your time on brewday is so much more valuable than your time the night before, but since I don't know you, I guess I'll just accept it at face value. If you really want to save time, you could try boiling for 30 minutes instead of an hour. It only cuts the IBUs by about 20-25%, which is pretty easy to make up with 50 cents worth of hops. Obviously you'd boil off less wort, so there's another 50 cents for grain. You still might come out ahead with what you save on energy. As long as you're not using pilsner malt, I don't think DMS would really be an issue, although you'd have to try it yourself to see how you like it.