Anyone boil for <60 minutes?

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asaxon08

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Hello fellow beer nerds,

Anyone ever tried to boil for less than 60 minutes? I understand the boil is for hop bittering in the beer. However, I'm brewing a Dunkel Weizen, which isn't hoppy at all.

I simply ran out of time before I had to leave for work, do I needed to cut it short.

Anywho, here's the breakdown of the beer:

Midnight Dunkel

Malt:

6 LB - Wheat DME (60/40 Wheat/Briess Golden light)

Specialty grains:

1.75 LB German Plisen
0.75 LB American chocolate wheat

Hops:

1 oz Hellertau 2.7%
0.5 oz Tettnang 2.6%

Yeast:

WLP 300/Hefeweizen yeast

1.) Steeped specialty grains @ 155* for 30min.
2.) Sparse with 1G of water at 165*
3.) Remove from heat, stir in DME.
4.) Return to boil, add hops and boil for 60 min.
5.) Cooled to 73*.
6.) Pitched yeast and poured into fermenter simultaneously.
 
Hello fellow beer nerds,

Anyone ever tried to boil for less than 60 minutes? I understand the boil is for hop bittering in the beer. However, I'm brewing a Dunkel Weizen, which isn't hoppy at all.

I simply ran out of time before I had to leave for work, do I needed to cut it short.

Anywho, here's the breakdown of the beer:

Midnight Dunkel

Malt:

6 LB - Wheat DME (60/40 Wheat/Briess Golden light)

Specialty grains:

1.75 LB German Plisen
0.75 LB American chocolate wheat

Hops:

1 oz Hellertau 2.7%
0.5 oz Tettnang 2.6%

Yeast:

WLP 300/Hefeweizen yeast

1.) Steeped specialty grains @ 155* for 30min.
2.) Sparse with 1G of water at 165*
3.) Remove from heat, stir in DME.
4.) Return to boil, add hops and boil for 60 min.
5.) Cooled to 73*.
6.) Pitched yeast and poured into fermenter simultaneously.


Since you are using dry extracts, that typically removes the question of DMS, vegetal, cooked corn or other off flavors certain grains (all-grain brewing) can be known for. No problem there with reduced boil times.

Leaving you with the how much hop bittering IBU's, flavor or aroma IBU's will I get from a proposed (reduced) boil time deviated from the recipe? When I look at these values, I plug the hop bill into BeerSmith software program and play with the addition times to make sure it meets my total IBU goals. You can also do certain techniques to add a hop profile like dry hopping if you have run out of time. Won't add bitterness but will add mostly aroma.

I suggest BeerSmith to evaluate the impact of certain boil times.
 
Your DME does not have to be boiled for a full 60 minutes. It has already been boiled in the process of making the extract and re-over-boiling can cause it to darken and/or burn, and result in some unwanted flavors. Boiling your low IBU hops for 60 min. is advisable to extract all the oils because, while a dunkel is not a hoppy-tasting beer, a full hop boil will balance what might otherwise be a too-bready/biscuity taste without them. When it comes to extract, I split it: half @ 60 min, half @ 30 min. You can even leave all of the DME until last half of the boil if you want. Basically, you want it to fully reconstitute and sterilize, and 30 min (even 15 min) is enough.
 
I brew with extract/steeping grains. I haven't boiled longer than 30 minutes in probably 2 years. As long as you're hitting your IBU's, (I use Brewer's Friend software) there's no need for a longer boil. I usually add 10-25% of my DME at the start, then add the rest at flame-out.
 
However, I'm brewing a Dunkel Weizen, which isn't hoppy at all.

Even though you say a Dunkel Weizen is not hoppy, think of the beer's taste if you had no hops in the recipe. The hops balance the malts into the taste the style is known for. Your recipe is based on the extraction these particular hops offer at the boil times given. If you reduce the boil time, you end up reducing the IBU's each addition offers the finished product. If you boil a shorter length of time, you'd end up needing to add more hops at each addition to compensate and hit your calculated IBU level.

Now...what if my beer is clearly not hoppy enough after all is said and done? Many of us have hit this snag, or at least I have. I found an Iso-Alpha hop extract online (HopTech) that adds additional hop bitterness to the final product after fermentation. This was a bittering extract only, but you can also find hop shots or concentrated hop extracts that carry the flavor profiles of selected hops. These make good final adjustments in a crunch, but hops in the boil are the preferred way to bitter.
 
I know shortening the boil time was going to effect how well the hops balance out the malts, hence the original reason I started this thread. I was simply asking, if anyone had boiled for less than 60 min, what was their experience with it?

But that is also a reason why I added the extra 1/2 oz of Tettnang. The recipe technically only calls for 1 oz of Hellertau. And I also accidentally said the Tettnang had a 2.6% AA rating, which was incorrect. The type I put in there was 6.2%.

So I added the extra hops with the higher AA rating in hops of making up for the lack of boil time. I boiled for 45 minutes instead of the full 60.

Also, thanks for the tip on not boiling the DME for 60 min. I never thought how it could over-cook the sugars because of boiling it twice. I also read that using a copper immersion chiller create me more oxidation in the wort. So I need to get rid of it and get a stainless steel one.
 
I used to do my extract based light lagers with a 30 minute boil, and 66% of the LME would go in 15 minutes before the end. The glory of extract brewing is that the bittering you get with less sugar in the boil is way more, so you get away with less bittering hops with less extract in the boil till late.
 
I have my second batch EVER fermenting now. I had two recipe kits, one from NB and one from BB. The one from BB included DME. The one from NB had LME. I noticed that the directions for the LME kit had a 45 minute boil time vs a 60 min boil time for the DME kit. Is it typical that LME brewing takes less boil time than equivalent DME recipes ?
 
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