60 minute boil

[garvinator70]

i don't see the need to boil for 60 min all grain i brewed an extra pale ale and boiled for 30 min . It had better hop aroma and flavor a little bitter but not bad i used 2 oz cascade 30 min. 1 oz cascade 1 min. boil was pretty damn good ? feed back please

 

[Drewch]

Lots of people boil less than 60 minutes. Lots boil more than 60 minutes. If you get good results with a 30-minute boil (adjust your volumes & hops accordingly), then go for it.

 

[seatazzz]

+1 to the above. Many times I've undershot my volume and had to adjust my boil to 30-45 minutes; however most of the time I way overshoot it and wind up boiling 90-120 minutes, still get the same results as long as my hop additions go in at the right times. It's a personal preference thing sometimes as well.

 

[NSMikeD]

there are many threads on the subject. Longer boils are usually more important when using Pilsner malts and driving off DMS for less forgiving lagers. As for hops, Brulosphy (admittedly their tests are not pure scientific method) pretty much were inconclusive with splt decisions which and of suggests 30 is close enough.

 

[garvinator70]

+1 to the above. Many times I've undershot my volume and had to adjust my boil to 30-45 minutes; however most of the time I way overshoot it and wind up boiling 90-120 minutes, still get the same results as long as my hop additions go in at the right times. It's a personal preference thing sometimes as well.

the same thang happened to me and i shortened my boil time to make up for it and damn was it good

 

[MikeCo]

I've made a few beers with 30 minute boils that turned out great. You just need to plan for less boil-off and use more hops than for a 60 minute boil, which means more hop material in the kettle and potentially more liquid losses. I use higher alpha acid bittering hops for shorter boils.

 

[Upstate12866]

I agree that shorter boils are typically fine (I bet modern malts help in this regard). But they can be "different," and I think that the style of beer might play a role in how much you like the outcome, too. I also feel better about bottle bombs with a longer boil.

I hated the long brew days as I was learning the hobby, which energized me to explore lots of time saving ideas. I saw videos on YouTube about raw ales and short boil pale ales, which assured me that the concept is possible. So I tried everything and they all basically work fine.

Sometimes I make a hop tea in 500ml water. This way I can get some more IBUs while it sits during mash. Then if I were still rushing, I would add the tea at 180 degrees while I'm heating towards a boil (thinking that 180+ gives you bitterness). Between the two steps, maybe this can give me an extra 10 or even 20 minutes of bittering time for my setup, and shaves the same amount of time from the boil. *Use a calculator to ensure you don't get more IBUs than you want.

I feel OK combining the steps above with a 15-20 min boil.

I do think you enter different territory (but not necessarily bad territory) when you are boiling for just a few minutes. In my tasting notes, I reported some 5 min boils as seeming a bit thicker or syrupy somehow, though with time this went away and they were excellent beers. I see I also reported a few infected bottles, which are pretty rare for me, in a 5 min boil batch and a raw ale batch. E.g., I haven't had any noticeable infections in 14 tries since 3/22, when I did a 5 min boil.

Most of my recent simple pale ales and lagers have been 25-35 min boils.

I always tell myself just 15 minutes, but can't resist leaving it on for an extra 5-10 min since it's already boiling and all. And I feel the extra minutes are insurance. It has been a fine length *for that style,* which is not necessarily a true German lager or proper British pale ale, but are mainly just easy drinking, easy to brew recipes that can take a rubbing and still come out well. Your cascade brew sounds like it fits that category.

 

[Christoff]

Definitely not an expert, and certainly not experienced given I've only been at this for about a year. But when I am not brewing, I am reading about brewing (my wife thinks I have a problem lol). What I have garnered from my reading and backed up by my own brewing (20 all grain batches give or take), the boiling is necessary for two reasons - hope utilization and sterilization. The latter is really only necessary for a few minutes therefore it depends on the IBU's you want to achieve and how much hops you want to use to achieve it. My understanding is without hops in your beer, the boiling doesn't really impact the beer (aside from OG and sanitization). I don't like the bitterness hops provide so I rarely boil past 45 minutes after the hot break is done. Hop utilization is affected by the amount of wort, so if you are doing the top up with colder, sanitized water trick, this will effect how much of your hops is utilized. If I understand it right, correct me if I am wrong, less wort volume equals less hop utilization. The other reason to boil for longer, see above, is to reduce the DMS in lagers. I haven't had an issue in my past lagers and only just started to experiment with a longer boil when I use pilsner malt. I may be too inexperienced to notice a difference, not impacted by the "off flavour", or leave the beer in the fermenter long enough to drive off enough that it isn't noticeable for me. Of course, if I don't hit my desire gravity, I have to boil longer, but that has only happened a couple times. If I am trying to get more IBU's in my beer, I just add more hops rather than boil longer. Reduces long brew days, but more importantly, reduces the condensation in my house. I don't want mold growing in my kitchen and my beer gets lots of complements so far.

 

[Protos]

the boiling doesn't really impact the beer (aside from OG and sanitization)

I mostly brew historical traditional recipes so I rarely decide the boil length myself as it's usually prescribed in the recipe I'm recreating to a tee.
The revelation moment came with a recent Graetzer, which I was boiling, by the recipe, for a full three hours. Graetzer is boiled with the lid closed, so evaporation rate was low and the concentration of the wort was very insignificant.
I've heard many times that the long boil caramelizes wort sugars and imparts to your beer toasty or malty or whatever else special flavours. I never believed it as boiling water at a normal pressure never reaches the sugar caramelization temperature. Accordingly, the three hours boil with the lid closed had absolutely no flavour or colour impact, not even the slightest one.

I got the point of the super-long boiling in this recipe nevertheless, as the prolonged boil produced a huge amount of very well broken Protein trub, the wort was almost crystal clear upon the yeast pitching, so the beer came out brilliantly clear, like a Champaigne, with no finings or prolonged Lagering needed. Exemplary clarity is one of the defining characteristics of the Graetzer style, hence the need for a longer boil for the 100% Wheat grist.

I still boil most of my beers exactly as long as the recipe requires, but now I better understand the impact of the boil. It's all about hops utilization or OG or clarity, and I don't expect it to impart any particular flavours as it doesn't. Also I came to understand that the boil length in traditional recipes is most often set not without some reason behind it.

 

[Christoff]

I mostly brew historical traditional recipes so I rarely decide the boil length myself as it's usually prescribed in the recipe I'm recreating to a tee.
The revelation moment came with a recent Graetzer, which I was boiling, by the recipe, for a full three hours. Graetzer is boiled with the lid closed, so evaporation rate was low and the concentration of the wort was very insignificant.
I've heard many times that the long boil caramelizes wort sugars and imparts to your beer toasty or malty or whatever else special flavours. I never believed it as boiling water at a normal pressure never reaches the sugar caramelization temperature. Accordingly, the three hours boil with the lid closed had absolutely no flavour or colour impact, not even the slightest one.

I got the point of the super-long boiling in this recipe nevertheless, as the prolonged boil produced a huge amount of very well broken Protein trub, the wort was almost crystal clear upon the yeast pitching, so the beer came out brilliantly clear, like a Champaigne, with no finings or prolonged Lagering needed. Exemplary clarity is one of the defining characteristics of the Graetzer style, hence the need for a longer boil for the 100% Wheat grist.

I still boil most of my beers exactly as long as the recipe requires, but now I better understand the impact of the boil. It's all about hops utilization or OG or clarity, and I don't expect it to impart any particular flavours as it doesn't. Also I came to understand that the boil length in traditional recipes is most often set not without some reason behind it.

I'm not sure I have come across clarity conversations. This is interesting. I have another rabbit hole to venture down now, thanks!

 

[Protos]

I had long had doubts in the "common wisdom" of the boiling adding to the colour of flavour of beer, but without making a side by side comparison I couldn't prove or disprove my doubts. Sometimes I felt like I percieved the flavour impact of boiling in my longer-boiled beers but I was never sure if it was exactly the impact of boiling and not of the grist composition or of the boiling-down concentration of the wort.

The Graetzer happened to be an ideal medium to experience the real degree of the boiling impact, as the sample was extremely light in flavour and colour, had no husks or melanoidin-rich matter in it and - the main thing - wort boiling-down was practically negligible, so if any flavour impact was to occur it could have been detected easily.
There wasn't any.

Regarding clarity, I'm remembering reading some authoritative books stating that a long and vigorous boil produces larger and heavier Protein clumps which then precipitate more readily upon chilling. As far as I remember it's pure mechanics: in a vigorously boiling wort small Protein clumps collide with a greater force, sticking to one another, and given enough time they build up into large chunks that precipitate very well and leave little of small particles suspended in the solutiuon. Unfortunately I can't recall immediately which sources exactly that were.

 

[aceluby]

Yep, longer boils help with clarity, it's another reason why lagers and pilsners tend to require 90 minute boils. I just made a pilsner that's in the fermenter and I did a 2 hour boil - it was by far the clearest I've ever seen the wort go into the fermenter. I'm pumped for that beer.

 

[TwogunRocky]

Exemplary clarity is one of the defining characteristics of the Graetzer style, hence the need for a longer boil for the 100% Wheat grist.

Would you care to share your recipe?

 

[Protos]

Willingly. The recipe was brewed following the guidelines published by the Redivivus Project research group in Grodzisk, Poland. My recipe differs in tiny details, so here's what I brewed:

OG=1.032
FG=1.005
ABV=3.5%
IBU=20

Water close to the authentic profile of the Graetzer brewery well:
Ca 120, Mg 34, Na 10, SO 136, Cl 65
Lactic Acid addition to set the predicted mash pH at 5.8 (not at 5.3 as recommended for light Barley beers)

Weyermann Oak-Smoked Wheat Malt - 100%

Mash 60' @37°C
Mash 30' @50°C
Mash 60' @72°C
Boil 3 hours

Saazer α5.6 - 19 IBU @15' after the start of the boil (must be Nowotomyski hop, but it's unavailable here so I used Saazer as the closest substitution)
Saazer α5.6 - 4 IBU @30' before the end of the boil
Saazer α5.6 - 1/8 by weight of the first charge in a hopback for 15'

Lalbrew Köln yeast

Primary @15°-17°C - 3 weeks
Lagering on the lees @6°-1°C - 3 weeks

Carbonisation 3v

The beer turned out a perfect, impeccable example of the style. If I only participated in beer competitions it would certainly get a prize in its category.
It's my first fully successful attempt on a Graetzer after the previous three. With those, I didn't build the water so they came out whether too bitter or too acidic. Such a light style is very demanding to the mineral content of the water. This time, with the right liquor, finally a success. All the previous attempts came out very clear too, which I've come to understand now was an effect of a prolonged boil.

 

[VikeMan]

It's certainly true that boiling wort causes proteins to clump together. That's hot break. Something I haven't seen is anything quantitative to indicate that continuing a boil much longer after hot break has been achieved provides any tangible benefit. I have seen videos of Charles Bamforth stating that long boils are basically essential, but without providing evidence. Charlie has done a lot of important stuff for the brewing industry (and by extension, for homebrewers), but I have sometimes noticed a tendency to mix opinion with fact without making that clear. I think most of us do that, but when it comes from recognized authorities, it can have a bit more influence.

Just a kind of funny anecdote...some old comments (~20 years ago) from Charlie were (IMO) largely responsible for the position (of some) that damage from hot side aeration is a myth. I have Charlie's book "Freshness" (2017), where he gives advice about how to avoid hot side aeration. I about fell out of my chair when I read it. Sometimes brewing science progresses (or at least prevailing opinions change).

 

[DBhomebrew]

I've been trying to find this link and finally got it.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1966.tb02933.x
@cire shared it here...

Boil time reduction : the science please

 

[JoeSpartaNJ]

For hop forward beers, I usually boil for 30 minutes. For darker, malt forward styles, stouts, porters, brown, etc, I boil for 60 minutes.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Yep, longer boils help with clarity, it's another reason why lagers and pilsners tend to require 90 minute boils. I just made a pilsner that's in the fermenter and I did a 2 hour boil - it was by far the clearest I've ever seen the wort go into the fermenter. I'm pumped for that beer.

I am not sure about either the long boil requirement or the idea that clear wort into the fermenter means clear beer. I recently finished off a keg of what might be a West Coast Pilsner. It was 100% Pilsner malt with a 60 minute boil and it was crystal clear after only a few weeks in the keg. Honestly, I attribute much of the clarity of many of my beers to the large amount of trub that I transfer into my fermenters. Trub does a great job of pulling out hazy causing "stuff". I recently acquired a kettle with a ball valve that lets me transfer less trub to the fermenter. Every batch done that way so far has had issues with haze or chill haze that I never used to have before.

I am pretty sure the 90 minute boil with Pilsner malt was more about removing DMS, which I am not convinced is an issue with today's malts.

 

[cire]

I am not sure about either the long boil requirement or the idea that clear wort into the fermenter means clear beer. I recently finished off a keg of what might be a West Coast Pilsner. It was 100% Pilsner malt with a 60 minute boil and it was crystal clear after only a few weeks in the keg. Honestly, I attribute much of the clarity of many of my beers to the large amount of trub that I transfer into my fermenters. Trub does a great job of pulling out hazy causing "stuff". I recently acquired a kettle with a ball valve that lets me transfer less trub to the fermenter. Every batch done that way so far has had issues with haze or chill haze that I never used to have before.

Slow flocculating yeasts cause haze for several days. Calcium is vital for yeast cell wall strength that enables good flocculation.

Heavily hopped beers are prone to haze.

As I understand, there are two major haze forming compounds in beer. One is from nitrogenous compounds, those which are soluble being mostly desirable, adding body and heading properties. Insoluble ones cause haze, but boiling coagulates those to drop out more quickly. Some nitrogens have limited solubility at lower temperatures with the potential to cause what we call a chill haze. A period spent at a temperature lower than at which it will be served enables those to quickly sediment.

Other hazes are usually caused by products released from the mash if pH is too high. Properly treated brewing liquor will result in a suitable mash pH.

Using whole hops and a filter in the kettle, only clear wort is transferred from it to the FV. From more than decade ago, only clear wort has passed into the kettle when a stainless steel false bottom replaced the grain bag without any haze.

 

[Christoff]

For hop forward beers, I usually boil for 30 minutes. For darker, malt forward styles, stouts, porters, brown, etc, I boil for 60 minutes.

I am curious what the reasons are for this. I am pretty new so I'm always trying to learn. What differences do you find?

 

[JoeSpartaNJ]

I am curious what the reasons are for this. I am pretty new so I'm always trying to learn. What differences do you find?

For, I find the maltier beers benefit from the mallard reactions from a longer boil. Makes the malt flavor shine.

I use the opposite mentality for hop forward beers, mostly of the hazier types though.

For a beer that I want to showcase both, say SNPA clone, I may slpit the difference and boil for 45 minutes.

 

[chthon]

For, I find the maltier beers benefit from the mallard reactions from a longer boil. Makes the malt flavor shine.

Did anybody ever test this with the same recipes and different boil times, and then a controlled sensory evaluation?

Maillard reactions

• Proceed much slower in an acid environment with pH < 6
• Start to become faster at around 140°C (284° F) and higher

And for the sensory evaluation, the beer hopping will also probably need to be adjusted to take into account the longer boil times. How would this influence the final result?

 

[cire]

Beer does darken during the boil, but whether it is the result of a Maillard Reaction isn't certain in my mind.

Maillard reactions are said to occur best at greater than pH 6, while a typical optimum boil starts at pH 5.4 and finishes at pH 5.2. Wort produced at pH 6, or above would likely be quite astringent, potentially with a permanent haze.

 

[JoeSpartaNJ]

Did anybody ever test this with the same recipes and different boil times, and then a controlled sensory evaluation?

Maillard reactions

• Proceed much slower in an acid environment with pH < 6
• Start to become faster at around 140°C (284° F) and higher

And for the sensory evaluation, the beer hopping will also probably need to be adjusted to take into account the longer boil times. How would this influence the final result?

Just my guess from what I have read over the years. May I have interpreted it wrong? Probably.

I just know thorough trial and error that darker, maltier beers, to me at least taste better being done with a 60 minute boil rather than 30.

And yes, the hopping rate was adjusted for the boil times.