It's been about 4 years since I brewed an extract kit, but I got a gift of an extract dogfish 60 minute kit and can't resist. I never did full boils when I did extract but I plan on doing the full boil on this one based on what I have researched it will be better quality. My question is whether I should add half of the extract late in the boil to get better efficiency? I never got great efficiency with extract kits when I would add 3 gallons of water at the end, so I am trying this full boil out. Any advise would be great!
AG brewer going old school with extract
- Thread starter elgee
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Psylocide
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Efficiency with extracts shouldn't be an issue. If you add X amount of malt extract and X amount of water, you should arrive at your target OG laid out in the kit.
When I did extracts, I'd do 15% of the DME at the start and 75% at flame out, but that was purely for the purposes of maintaining the desired color.
My reasoning on the late assigns is two gold I suppose. First, understand that it is possible to get better hop utilization when extracts are added late in the boil. Second, my through is that less sugar would boil off if added at the end and I'd get a higher gravity, not sure if that logic is sound though?
Psylocide
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Sugar doesn't boil off, but water does.
There are a few issues to consider here:
If you add extract at flame out (which is perfectly acceptable) it will reduce carmelization of the sugars(buts thats usually only a concern after a 2 hour or more boil). You can actually jus rack the boiled water with hops in it onto the extract in the primary.
The lower the specific gravity, the higher the hop utilzation. So when u add the extract to the water, it affects hop utilization.
Decisions, decisions
If you add extract at flame out (which is perfectly acceptable) it will reduce carmelization of the sugars(buts thats usually only a concern after a 2 hour or more boil). You can actually jus rack the boiled water with hops in it onto the extract in the primary.
The lower the specific gravity, the higher the hop utilzation. So when u add the extract to the water, it affects hop utilization.
Decisions, decisions
Something to consider... Beer Smith computes for flame out additions of LME, to get IBU calculations correct. I'm sure other programs do as well
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