Made the switch from extract to all grain brewing this year and after refining my technique over a few batches, I'm planning on branching out into a few new beer styles (been primarily brewing pale and wheat ales). I have a couple recipes in mind that each contain a good amount of pilsner malt. I know that lengthening the boil time to get rid of DMS when doing a pilsner is important. However, I was wondering if the veracity of the boil would have an effect too? Does it need to be a vigorous boil or will a rolling boil work just as well? I'm asking because I've been doing BIAB batches on my gas stove top and haven't seen a very vigorous boil working off of the biggest burner. So far, a good rolling boil hasn't affected the quality of the beer I'm making (might be misleading effect of using fermcap-s in the boil to prevent boilovers and scowls from SWMBO?) but I'm not sure if I should be concerned about it when using pilsner malt? Thanks!
Pilsner boil and DMS?
- Thread starter BumpyAZ
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
ArcaneXor
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2007
- Messages
- 4,502
- Reaction score
- 128
A gently rolling boil is all that's needed with most Pilsner malts as long as it is uncovered and 75-90 minutes long. If you boil more vigorously, you can probably get by with a 60-minute boil, but the beer will look darker and taste differently because of increased melanoidin formation.
philosofool
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 8, 2007
- Messages
- 387
- Reaction score
- 74
As long as you chill rapidly, you won't have DMS in your beer (unless you leave the lid on, or boil very weakly (edit: or less than 60 minutes). Most professional brewers must whirlpool at the end of their boil and can't chill rapidly. Homebrewers can usually chill in the pot, so they can whirlpool after and while chiller.
DMS arives in beer due from its precursor, SMM. SMM has a half life of 40 minutes at boiling, but while boiling, all produced DMS evaporates. Once boiling stops, residual SMM evolves to DMS until the wort reaches 140 degrees, but the evaporation no longer happens efficiently. I don't have a copy of George Fix's stuff on DMS handy, but his basic conclusion is that the amount of DMS in your beer is basically a function of the amount of SMM in your beer at the end of the boil and the amount of time it takes to bring the beer to 158 degrees. (Probably, temperatures near 158 produce DMS from SMM so slowly that it doesn't really matter.)
Edit, for the geeky, I found the Fix stuff:
http://hbd.org/brewery/library/ThermoCS0995.html
DMS arives in beer due from its precursor, SMM. SMM has a half life of 40 minutes at boiling, but while boiling, all produced DMS evaporates. Once boiling stops, residual SMM evolves to DMS until the wort reaches 140 degrees, but the evaporation no longer happens efficiently. I don't have a copy of George Fix's stuff on DMS handy, but his basic conclusion is that the amount of DMS in your beer is basically a function of the amount of SMM in your beer at the end of the boil and the amount of time it takes to bring the beer to 158 degrees. (Probably, temperatures near 158 produce DMS from SMM so slowly that it doesn't really matter.)
Edit, for the geeky, I found the Fix stuff:
http://hbd.org/brewery/library/ThermoCS0995.html
I had been experiencing very mild or simmering type boils. I realize that if I had my valve open all the way before I lit the flame at the burner,my regulator would actually throttle back. When I had my lighter on and then open the regulator my boils were a lot better.
Similar threads
