There was an article in BYO magazine about kicking up your extract kits. Two of the tips are Steep Small and Boil Big. I've had great results following this advice.
The whole article is still on their website http://***********/feature/1175.html
Brew Your Own
Kick Up Your Kit
by Marlon Lang
Mar, 2004
Tip 3. Steep small. Does your kit instruct you to steep your specialty grains in the full amount of brewing water? This is a good way to get the most flavor from the grains, but itâs also a good way to extract harsh tannins from the grain. For a better steep, place your crushed grains in a nylon or muslin steeping bag and add only enough water to your brewpot to cover the grains. Steep the grains at temperatures anywhere from 130ö170 ¡F (54ö77 ¡C). When you are done, lift the grain bag out and let it drip for 15 seconds or so. If you steep the specialty grains in a separate small pot, you can be heating the bulk of your brewing water in your big brewpot during the steep. Just add the ãgrain teaä from the little pot to your big pot when itâs ready ÷ in about 30 minutes.
Tip 8. Boil Bigger . . . or at Least Better. Just as thereâs more than one way to peel garlic, thereâs more than one way to boil your wort. Letâs run down your options.
A full wort boil: My definition of a full wort boil is boiling the entire volume, less evaporation losses, of wort that will go into the fermenter. A full wort boil lets you extract more bitterness from your hops and darkens your wort less. If you can manage a full wort boil, this is the way to go. To boil your full wort, you either need a pot big enough to hold your entire wort or to boil the wort in shifts. If your boiling pot is not large enough to hold all your wort, plus a few gallons of headspace for foaming, see Chris Colbyâs ãTexas Two-Step Methodä article (October 2003 BYO) for a way to produce your wort in two steps.
Add the extract late: Even if youâre saddled with a small brew pot, you can still tweak some boil variables to get a better boil. If your kit contains liquid malt extract, you can add the bulk of it at or near the end of the boil. To do this, add one or two pounds of your malt extract to the kettle at the beginning of your boil, but withhold the rest. Add your hops at the times specified in the recipe. With 15 minutes left in the boil, turn off the heat and stir in the remainder of the extract. Resume heating for the remaining 15 minutes, but donât worry if the wort doesnât return to a boil. See Steve Baderâs ãBoil the Hops, not the Extract,ä (October 2002 BYO) for another variation on this theme, in which you add the liquid malt extract at knockout.
Adding the extract late lets you brew pale ales that are actually pale, not red. Plus, you donât have to add a whole hopper of hops to get the degree of bitterness you want. This advice runs counter to much homebrew lore, but many liquid malt extracts are already boiled during their production. Remember the mantra, ãDonât fix what ainât broke?ä In this case, it translates to ãDonât boil what donât need boiling.ä
