1st braggot

[BerserkerBrewer]

hi everyone.
would like to make a braggot.
my question is do i need to boil my malt extract for an hour if i am not adding any thing else to it.

5 gallon batch.
1.8 kg light malt extract
500 g amber DME
6 lbs of honey

my thinking is to boil the dme for 20 mins and add the malt extract as soon as the DME has disolved, boil 15 mins to sterlise, add honey to fermentor, pour in wort, and top up to 5 gallons.
thinking of disolving wort in 7 litres of water, this is the biggest stockpot i can get indoors, my outdoor burner has cracked and so limited till next one arrives next week.

 

[woozy]

I don't know what a braggot is but if you aren't adding any hops then you don't need to boil at all you just need to heat the water enough to dissolve the extract and maybe reach 200 degrees for sanitizing. 35 minutes is way, way, way, overkill. 0 seconds would be fine. (it's the reaching the temperature that kills the nasties; not staying at the temp.) ou don't need to reach a boil but just getting to 190+ is fine. Of course you can *see* a boil so simply bringing to a boil and taking it off as soon as you see any sign of boil is probably the easiest.

 

[BerserkerBrewer]

thanks

 

[StoneArcher]

Might want to scope out the mead forum.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/

I seen a few braggot threads over the last couple of weeks. I havn't read any since I haven't done one.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

I don't know what a braggot is but if you aren't adding any hops then you don't need to boil at all you just need to heat the water enough to dissolve the extract and maybe reach 200 degrees for sanitizing. 35 minutes is way, way, way, overkill. 0 seconds would be fine. (it's the reaching the temperature that kills the nasties; not staying at the temp.) ou don't need to reach a boil but just getting to 190+ is fine. Of course you can *see* a boil so simply bringing to a boil and taking it off as soon as you see any sign of boil is probably the easiest.

This is poor information.

All bacteria are different and become ineffective at different temps.
Bringing to a boil for 15min is the only way to make sure you have no contaminants in your wort.

On the other hand honey has such a low percentage of moisture that nothing could survive in it. When I make mead I use no heat, yet only vigorous shaking to incorporate the honey into the wort. This helps keep the precious aromatics of the honey, specially when you get something nice like orange blossom or wild flower.

Also consider doing a staggered honey feed, boil your wort with DME for 15mins cool and pitch in the FV with 2 pds of honey. After 3-4 days of vigorous fermentation add another 2 pds, and another 3 days down the line add the last 2 pounds. This allows the yeast to ferment clean and not stress from the high gravity wort.

Good luck!

 

[LovesIPA]

All bacteria are different and become ineffective at different temps.
Bringing to a boil for 15min is the only way to make sure you have no contaminants in your wort.

I was going to add this too. Raising the temperature to pasteurization temp for an instant is not an effective method for sterilizing wort.

 

[woozy]

Okay. I rescind my advice.

But a wort of Honey and Extract and water isn't going to have any serious infections. But boil it for 15 minutes anyway.

Hmmm, I'm pretty sure the one and only time I have used HME it didn't require any sanitation boil... Of course that was eons ago...

===edit===
Okay, I rescind my advice on general principals. bacteria are different. But the bacteria you are going to find in municipal or county tap water or treated well water (none), on honey (none) , on extract (none) and on the pot you mix it all in (killible via boiling water) all make it safe and adequate to: Bring water to a boil, remove from heat, mix ingredients, and add to a sanitized fermentor.

 

[BerserkerBrewer]

thanks, i only used spring water, 20 litre cooler bottles, so wateris fine. boiled for 20 mins, allowed to cool to 90 then i poured in ( from a great hieght, and stirred in 3 lbs of honey, 2lbs will be added later, after 3-4 days. i also added 1 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and all spice, and 3 tsp of cinnamon, just to give it a real festive flavour. Will definately keep this updated.
ps. thechocolate malt was very strong, if i repeat will cut to 100g as this is a very dark beer , more like porter/stout colour

 

[Justintoxicated]

My guess would be to boil the wort but not the honey. Add that later.

 

[peterj]

I don't know what a braggot is but if you aren't adding any hops then you don't need to boil at all you just need to heat the water enough to dissolve the extract and maybe reach 200 degrees for sanitizing. 35 minutes is way, way, way, overkill. 0 seconds would be fine. (it's the reaching the temperature that kills the nasties; not staying at the temp.) ou don't need to reach a boil but just getting to 190+ is fine. Of course you can *see* a boil so simply bringing to a boil and taking it off as soon as you see any sign of boil is probably the easiest.

This is poor information.

All bacteria are different and become ineffective at different temps.
Bringing to a boil for 15min is the only way to make sure you have no contaminants in your wort.

I know this thread's like a month old, but I just couldn't let this misinformation live on in the forum. Woozy's first comment was not poor information; he was completely correct.

It is absolutely not necessary to boil for 15 minutes to sterilize. Pasteurization occurs at temperatures above 140F. If you just go to 140F then you should probably leave it for 15 minutes, but once you get to around 160F or 170F everything in the wort will be killed in a few seconds. I know you already made this, but my advice would have been to bring the water to a boil then add all of the extract. As long as the temperature stabilized above 170F or so, you would be fine. If it dropped below that, I would just heat it up a little.

While there are a lot of different bacteria that I'm sure are killed at different temperatures, there are not any that can survive above 140F (except maybe thermophiles you find by volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean) which is why pasteurization is such a widely used and effective process.

As a side note, I have heard that spring/bottled water can actually contain a lot higher bacterial count than treated tap water.

 

[JimRausch]

Killing contaminants besides, what about boiling to get a hotbreak so you can settle out any potentially haze-forming proteins. If you heat just to pasteurization temps that would not happen, right?