papazzian suggestions

So...

My first batch ever was a dubbel (I know, not the best to start with) that was in Papazzian's book and so far it's been one of my best beers. I've done late extractions since and they seem to be ok but still not as good in style as the first.

I'm curious... looking for clarifications about why....

Why not 1 hr boils with all extract? (I know it will darken and hop utilization will go down)

 

You pretty much got the reasons. Darkening and hop utilization. Given that there are no substantive advantages to boiling all your extract for the full 60 mins, these two reasons become reasonably compelling.

 

True, I just find it odd that he says boiling for 60 minutes will make it a better beer. I don't understand why it would be better with a full boil.

 

A 60 min full wort boil will make better beer. But all the extract doesn't have to be in there to achieve it. Mostly, the length of the boil is to ensure proper hop utilization and bittering, and to drive off some volatiles (although this is less important with extract brews than all grain brews).

 

I wonder also if we are maybe getting better quality *ME now? Brewing in 2007 I was getting such a trivial amount of hot break by adding *ME with 15 minutes left in the boil that I switched to adding my *ME at flameout, with very good results.

 

Plus with hops prices as is, the late addition gets more bang for buck out of the hops. Is this correct or is it a negligible difference?

 

plugging the numbers into beersmith it can make ounces of difference depending on how large your boil is and how much extract you use.