Does it make sense to cook the wort for 30 min. before you add the first hops?

Hello everybody,
I just joined the forum today. Guess the initiative reason is that I have a question regarding a all grain brew recipe. It's a wheat beer recipe I found at a brew sullpy store in Cincinnati, Oh. I brewed the malt exctract version a while ago. Today I'm into all grain brewing so I brewed it today. Here is the question: The all exctact version says to boil for 60 min. and add 16g of Cascade hops in the beginning. The all grain version lets you collect 7 gal of wort, boil it for 90 min and collect 5gal. The first hops are added after 30 minutes?
What sense does it make to add the bittering after boiling for 30min without adding anything?

just a guess, but i would guess for your boil off amount

a 30 minute addition will add a little bitterness and a little flavor with a hint of aroma.

I have 2 hefe recipes that I brew, one has an ounce of hallertau split .75oz at 45 min and .25oz at 15 minutes.

The other one has an oz of hallertau at 60 minutes and an oz of saaz at flameout, this one also has an OG of 1.074 so it is a bit bigger than your typical hefe.

I am sure this muddled you a bit more than it helped but the 30 minute addition lets that one bit of hops to add both some bitterness as well as flavor.

They might intend for you to wait for the hot-break. After it starts boiling you'll notice foam gathering on the surface, then eventually it mostly falls to the bottom. You can put your hops in then. People usually boil their bittering hops for an hour, but a few extra minutes won't hurt, and supposedly you get (a little) more bitterness up to 90 minutes. Otherwise, as above, the boil is mainly for hops and to get the appropriate amount of wort at the right gravity - also for sanitation, but that doesn't take 90 minutes.

If using pilsener malts, you'll want to do a 90 minute boil to avoid DMS issues. That's the only time I ever do boils for that length of time, mine are usually 60 minutes plus hot break time.

As for that boil time, I boil off a gallon and a half in an hour boil so I collect 7 gallons to get me 5.5 into the fermentor so a 90 minute boil would boil off more. does the recipe call for pilsen malt by chance?

yes I guess the boil off amount is calculated correctly but the whole grain recipe could use less grain for a 60min boil with the same gravity

Not less grain, less water. What's the recipe?

jumertens said:

Hello everybody,
I just joined the forum today. Guess the initiative reason is that I have a question regarding a all grain brew recipe. It's a wheat beer recipe I found at a brew sullpy store in Cincinnati, Oh. I brewed the malt exctract version a while ago. Today I'm into all grain brewing so I brewed it today. Here is the question: The all exctact version says to boil for 60 min. and add 16g of Cascade hops in the beginning. The all grain version lets you collect 7 gal of wort, boil it for 90 min and collect 5gal. The first hops are added after 30 minutes?
What sense does it make to add the bittering after boiling for 30min without adding anything?

Click to expand...

The hot break strips a lot of bitterness out of the early hop additions.
I bring to the boil, and keep it boiling for 15 minutes to allow the hot break to subside, before adding the bittering hops. I find that 15 minutes is adequate before adding the hops, but 30 minutes may be better. I've never tried it.

-a.

As I understand it, hop utilization is figured based on how long the hops are in the boil. Other factors aside, the contibution from the all grain addition at 30 minutes in (60 min left in boil) will be equivalent to your extract version addition at the start of the boil (60 min left in boil).

I use Pilsener Malt for my Koelsch (7.5lb Pilsener Malt, 1lb Weat Malt) but I never had DMS problems although I alwasy boil for 60min. in a turkey fryer with with no cover.

Like everyone else said its for your hot break. You have seven gallons to make sure you will have 5 gallons at the end of the boil. extract is boiled before they package it so the hot break is done for you for the most part. ( you still get a little foam with extract but not much.)

Thanks, that what I didn't know. Next time I will try 15min. and go with 1/2 gal. less water.

Wheat (blue star) - (5gal)
3.3 lb german wheat malt
5.5 lb pale 2-row malt
0.5 lb german cara-pils (dextrin)
Single mash for 60 min. at 154F (4.66gal)
Sparge water (15min) at 170F (3.5 gal)
(8.16gal - 1.16gal water retension) = 7gal

boil time 90 min
0.58oz Cascade AA 5.7% (60min)
1.0oz Cascade AA 5.7% (15min)
0.5oz Cascade AA 5.7% (0min)

Yeast: White labs WLP001

Ferment at 70F

That's what I brewed yesterday except I used a bit less water and added the bittering hops 10min after the hot break.
Got around 5.2gal - OG 1.055 (recipe says OG 1.046, guess it's b/c I used about 1l less water and the efficieny was about 80% )
I also used Cascade AA 6.4% that means the IBU turned out to be 26 instead of 18 as it says the original recipe. Will see how it turns out. I can hear the bubbles while I write this..what a lovely sound.

Yeah, there's nothing in your recipe that would require a 90 minute boil, so they were likely giving a timeframe to include hot break.