Effects of early and late addition DME

[bootney]

I've read through most of the threads that deal with early and late addition DME and I still have a few questions pertaining to DME.

Northern Brewer has a Biere De Garde kit that uses 3# of Pilsen DME with a 90 minute boil and then adds 4# of Pilsen DME for the final 15 of the boil. What is the point of the late addition DME? I'm doing a similar recipe but I don't have any specific times on DME additions. My recipe calls for 6# of extra light DME, and 1# of amber DME. Any suggestions out there on when to add DME and perhaps boil time? I was just planning on doing the whole thing for 60 minutes. Thanks

 

[midfielder5]

Any suggestions out there on when to add DME and perhaps boil time?
3# of Extra Light DME @ 60 minutes;
rest of it w/ final 15 of the boil.

 

[keithfitzpatrick]

Late DME additions decrease the overall boil gravity which increases your hop utilization.

If you do the whole thing for 60 mins, you will have to assume you will get lower hop utilization and thus you may need to add more hops to compensate

 

[PT Ray]

The point of the late addition is to keep it from darkening and help retain the original flavor. I see a lot of gray area about how much to start with in the boil. Personally I dump it all in at the last couple minutes of the boil. After I get it back up to a boil I kill the heat.

 

[headfullahops]

Late extract additions are for the purpose of lighter color and better hop utilization in concentrated wort boils (ie. 3 gallons of wort for a 5 gallon batch). The lighter color comes from less carmelization of sugars in the kettle and the better hop utilization comes from the fact that the lower the gravity of the boiling wort, the more alpha acids (bittering compounds) will be isomerized, or dissolved, in the wort. Late extract additions are only necessary if you are boiling concentrated wort and are at all worried about the aforementioned advantages.

 

[SumnerH]

Late extract additions are for the purpose of lighter color

Yes

and better hop utilization in concentrated wort boils (ie. 3 gallons of wort for a 5 gallon batch)

No, this is a myth that most home brewing books picked up for some reason. Hop utilization is independent of wort gravity. As a real-world test,
Basic Brewing Radio did an episode where they brewed the same recipe as a full boil, partial boil, and partial boil with late extract additions, then measured the IBUs of the 3 beers in the lab. Hop utilization is identical. March 4, 2010 - BYO-BBR Experiment III:
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

The lighter color comes from less carmelization of sugars in the kettle

This can also affect the taste (caramelized/maillard-reacted sugars are somewhat less fermentable), especially in a light and crisp beer. Think Scottish ales for extreme examples of kettle-caramelization on color and flavor.

and the better hop utilization comes from the fact that the lower the gravity of the boiling wort, the more alpha acids (bittering compounds) will be isomerized, or dissolved, in the wort.

See, e.g. the American Society of Brewing Chemists in 1989; the abstract at http://www.asbcnet.org/journal/abstracts/backissues/47-14.htm says:
"In the range 10.5-13.5° P, no relationship between hop utilization and original gravity was found, " and more recent literature showing the same thing in higher gravity beers.

Listen to John Palmer's "What is an IBU, Really?" from 20 March 2008 where he talks about it (including apologizing for getting this wrong in the most recent edition of How to Brew). He was actually among the first to bring the correct science to the home brewing world after attending a commercial hop science convention (which he discusses here):
http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=basic-brewing-radio-2008

More discussion here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/estimating-bitterness-algorithms-state-art-109681/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/hop-utilization-178668/

 

[homebrewer_99]

You didn't say how large your boil is.

The only reason for a 60 min boil is to extract bitterness from the hop. All grain 60 and 90 min boils are for volume reduction and other grain related issues. You don't have them with an all DME recipe.

When doing an all DME recipe you can halve the boil time (do a 30 min boil versus a 60 min one) and double up on the hops for the same bitterness.

 

[bootney]

So I went on Beer Smith and made adjustments to the recipe and set it to 3# of extra light DME for 60 minutes, and then add the remaining 3# of extra light DME and 1# of amber DME with 15 minutes left in the boil. In doing so it boosted my IBU's without changing the amount or boil time of my hop additions. Now if I understand you correctly SumnerH, changing the DME addition times should have not changed my IBU's?

I do full boils with about 6 1/2 gallons of water to start with.

 

[bootney]

When doing an all DME recipe you can halve the boil time (do a 30 min boil versus a 60 min one) and double up on the hops for the same bitterness.

With my brief experience in home brewing I have come to love how one question gets answered, and then another one is right behind it. Now would this same philosophy hold true when using LME as well?

 

[SumnerH]

So I went on Beer Smith and made adjustments to the recipe and set it to 3# of extra light DME for 60 minutes, and then add the remaining 3# of extra light DME and 1# of amber DME with 15 minutes left in the boil. In doing so it boosted my IBU's without changing the amount or boil time of my hop additions. Now if I understand you correctly SumnerH, changing the DME addition times should have not changed my IBU's?

That's right. Pretty much all brewing software gets this wrong, as it's based on the old home brew books--it's only in 2008 or so that the proper info started being disseminated.

As noted above, BBR actually did the experiment of brewing the same recipe (and identical hop schedule) with a full boil, a partial boil, and a late extract addition partial boil, then sent off the brews to the lab to have the IBUs measured. IBUs turned out the same, even though the algorithms used in brewing software would call for wildly different hop schedules to get the same IBUs.

The full-boil calculations seem to me like the right ones to use, so even if you're doing small boils and late additions you're best off IMO lying to the software and saying it's a full boil.

It's worth listening to that Palmer interview to get a handle on things; (if you're doing all-grain brewing, you might want to up your hops slightly in a partial boil, as isomerized alphas can adsorb to break material--that's a far smaller effect than what brewing software would suggest though).

 

[homebrewer_99]

With my brief experience in home brewing I have come to love how one question gets answered, and then another one is right behind it. Now would this same philosophy hold true when using LME as well?

It depends. Is the LME pre-hopped or not?

If it's pre-hopped then you really don't have to cook it at all. All the hop bitterness is already there. Boiling it for an hour won't make it more bitter.

The reason most brewers (myself included) do a 15 min steep with DME and LME is to pasteurize it.

 

[SumnerH]

You didn't say how large your boil is.

The only reason for a 60 min boil is to extract bitterness from the hop. All grain 60 and 90 min boils are for volume reduction and other grain related issues. You don't have them with an all DME recipe.

When doing an all DME recipe you can halve the boil time (do a 30 min boil versus a 60 min one) and double up on the hops for the same bitterness.

Sort of. Later additions add more flavor and aroma, too, though, and the utilization isn't linear; the longer the boil, the less you're extracting per minute. So you need a lot less than double the hops at 30 minutes to equal the bittering you'd get at 60 minutes.

Suppose you're doing a 1.072 OG IPA. If you had 3 oz of Cascades at 60 minutes, Tinseth* says that's in the 51 IBU ballpark. If you do a 30 minute boil, you'd get 78 IBUs with 6 oz of cascades; that's a lot more bitter beer. 4 oz would get you to 52 IBUs, which is right about on target (the algorithms are at best accurate to +/- 30% anyway, so it's well within the margin of error).

*Tinseth is one of the more accurate formulas for estimating IBUs, IMO. Lots of the older ones have completely wonky shapes on the hop utilization curve.

 

[homebrewer_99]

Sounds like you depend on software calculations... j/k

I can only pass along information I have learned and used.

I've been using Papazian's calculations from his Hop Utilization Chart in the Complete Joy of Homebrewing since 1994. The chart hasn't changed in 3 editions. I'm sure he would have corrected them (and his advice) if they were wrong.

If you say he's wrong then we all need to toss the Brewing Bible in the trash....

 

[SumnerH]

Sounds like you depend on software calculations... j/k

I can only pass along information I have learned and used.

I've been using Papazian's calculations from his Hop Utilization Chart in the Complete Joy of Homebrewing since 1994. The chart hasn't changed in 3 editions. I'm sure he would have corrected them (and his advice) if they were wrong.

If you say he's wrong then we all need to toss the Brewing Bible in the trash....

Papazian used Rager, didn't he? Rager has a totally goofy utilization curve; it's very accurate for 60min and <5min additions and less so in between--the S shape makes no sense logically, and doesn't agree with actual measurements.

In fact, the disagreement of Rager with actual graphs of hop utilization is what caused Glenn Tinseth to come up with the Tinseth formula. As he wrote when he was first publishing his info, "As you can see, the shape of the curve is different than the curves attributed to Jackie Rager in Zymurgy or to Mark Garetz in his book. That's because I believe, backed up by the brewing literature, that alpha acid isomerization is a first order, or more likely, a pseudo first order chemical reaction. The "S" shaped curves most homebrewers are familiar with don't seem to accurately reflect what's happening in the brew kettle."*

There's a good interview that touches on that discusses this in one of John Palmer and Jamil's shows over here: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/588

*http://www.realbeer.com/hops/research.html

 

[bootney]

homebrewer_99,

The LME I use does not come pre-hopped.

SumnerH,

I have lied to Beer Smith and made it think I was adding the DME all at the same time. I also set it to where I would do a 60 minute boil and the IBUs with 1 oz of Styrian Goldings (60 min), 1 oz Saaz (20 min), and 1 oz Saaz (5 min) came to 27.2. The IBUs with a 30 minute boil and only decreasing the Goldings to 30 minutes yielded an IBU of 23.1. Not a huge loss in IBUs IMO assuming that Beer Smith is at least somewhat accurate.

So my question to you SumnerH is what would you do in this situation? Full 60 minute boil with 3# DME, then add the remaining 4# of DME with 15 minutes left using the first hop schedule, or reduce it to a 30 minute boil with the 3# DME, then add the remaining 4# of DME with 15 minutes left using the adjusted 30 minute hop schedule? Time is not an issue here just curious to see if you or any others in this thread see a huge difference in either doing the 60 or 30 minute boil.

Thanks guys for contributing.

 

[SumnerH]

homebrewer_99,

The LME I use does not come pre-hopped.

SumnerH,

I have lied to Beer Smith and made it think I was adding the DME all at the same time. I also set it to where I would do a 60 minute boil and the IBUs with 1 oz of Styrian Goldings (60 min), 1 oz Saaz (20 min), and 1 oz Saaz (5 min) came to 27.2. The IBUs with a 30 minute boil and only decreasing the Goldings to 30 minutes yielded an IBU of 23.1. Not a huge loss in IBUs IMO assuming that Beer Smith is at least somewhat accurate.

So my question to you SumnerH is what would you do in this situation? Full 60 minute boil with 3# DME, then add the remaining 4# of DME with 15 minutes left using the first hop schedule, or reduce it to a 30 minute boil with the 3# DME, then add the remaining 4# of DME with 15 minutes left using the adjusted 30 minute hop schedule? Time is not an issue here just curious to see if you or any others in this thread see a huge difference in either doing the 60 or 30 minute boil.

Thanks guys for contributing.

I'd do the 60 minute boil to get the little bit of extra utilization. If you had a bit of extra hops, you could decrease the boil to 30 minutes and bump up the amount of hops to compensate, but you will get slightly more flavor/aroma that way (could be good or bad depending on what you're going for).

Personally I'm glad I stuck to 60 minute boils when I did extract, as it made it easy to convert my recipes to all-grain when I switched.

 

[bootney]

Just so I'm reading all of this information correctly, the most important factor in doing a 60 minute boil involving the use of Malt Extract is to increase hop utilization. The reason for adding Malt Extract late is for lighter color and to avoid carmelization of the sugars.

Looks like I'll go with the full 60 minute boil with 3# DME, then add the remaining 4# of DME with 15 minutes left using the original hop schedule.

Thanks guys.

 

[homebrewer_99]

SumnerH: I have a Mark Garetz book somewhere...


Bootney: OK, non-hopped LME.