Simmering a tripel? Would it work?

[Josh_K]

My wife just had nose surgery. On a good day, she hates the smell of beer cooking in the kitchen. With a stinted nose, it may be a little insensitive of me to brew.

...but I want to anyway so I was thinking of a few options:

1. Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil. Reduce heat, throw in some bittering hops, cover and simmer for an hour. Add LME at the end of the boil.
2. Same as above but add the LME at the beginning of the boil.
3. Quit being cheap and insensitive, buy a propane burner and do it outside.

Can you guys please give me suggestions?

 

[looneybomber]

I do option 1 every time I brew. This last time, I added my DME at 60min along with my hops, then the LME at "flame out", meaning while it's cooling in the kitchen sink full of water. I "simmer" this way because I saw them do it on Brew Network, hosted by Northern Brewer. I bought a bunch of Northern Brewer kits, so I figured if they can do it, so can I.

 

[barrooze]

The only issue with the process you described is covering your kettle during the boil (simmer). By covering your kettle, the DMS that would normally leave the liquid by hitching a ride on the steam will just fall back into the liquid once the steam condensates on the lid and drips back into the wort. If you like the flavor of canned corn in your beer, this shouldn't be an issue.

The best solution you say here is the propane burner option. This way you can eventually go to full wort boils. Also, keeping the lid off the kettle will be easily manageable if you're outside.

BTW, the Brewing Network is a great source of infotainment.

 

[looneybomber]

Isn't DMS only a problem from boiling wort when doing AG brewing? Just boiling hops or hops and specialty grain steeped water, is DMS still a problem?

 

[Josh_K]

For what it's worth, the LME I'm using is Gold syrup from Northern Brewer.

 

[biggestmuff]

DMS shouldn't be an issue if you're just boiling the hops.

You'll also get better hop utilization without boiling the extract.

 

[Josh_K]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I went ahead and tried option 1. I did it at my parents' house since I didn't want to experiment on my healing wife. The smell was minimal so I think I found a way to brew bigger beers without driving her crazy. I pitched a growler full of a Wyeast 1214 starter and had a vigorous fermentation the next morning so I guess all is well.

I'll update this in a month or so to let you all know how it turns out.