When a long boil darkens the wort (as mentioned above), it changes some of the sugars into unfermentables. Overboiled extract may not hit the FG target and it may end up a bit sweeter than you might like.
Barleywines are overboiled on purpose, to add extra caramel notes and color.
Sorry to be nitpicky but... I add it when I add my clarifier. When I used Irish moss, it was at 10 minutes; now I'm using Whirlfloc which recommends 15 minutes, so I do 15 minutes now. The sugar in a partial boil raises the boiling point to well above 212F. I've measured 215F at flameout. 10 minutes at that is more than enough to kill anything that might infect your beer. Consider also that after you add your late-addition extract it takes a good five minutes or more to return to a boil - during which time the wort is at a very high, though not boiling, temperature.add it no later than the last 15 minutes of the boil so that any bugs that might be in it are killed.
Also, there has been ongoing debate about hop utilization and density of the wort. I can't remember where the thread is, but someone IIRC, somehow showed that there was no perceptible difference in hop utilization between a sugar dense wort or a less dense wort.
So would boiling longer be a good way to make a cider sweet after fermentation has stopped? Would this convert some of the sugars to unfermentable sugars making the cider not so dry and easier to bottle carb?
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