Boil Time

[Morrey]

In preparation to brew a dry Irish Stout, the recipe calls for a 120 minute boil time. Is this necessary...not sure why such an extended boil is needed?

 

[thehaze]

I rarely drink dry stouts, as they are not my style.

I think you can get away with 60 minutes. I use 120 minutes for heavy dark belgians, RIS, barleywine, Baltic Porters.

Dry stout is not really a style that would benefit from a longer boil.

 

[cactusgarrett]

Without knowing your grainbill, i'm just assuming the longer boil is to gain some kind of complex flavoring from concentrating the wort through boiling (notice how i didn't say caramelization or Malliard). But like thehaze said, you're looking for the typical dry stout flavors more from your grainbill, not other factors.

 

[TravelingLight]

In preparation to brew a dry Irish Stout, the recipe calls for a 120 minute boil time. Is this necessary...not sure why such an extended boil is needed?

Hell no! I don't even boil my saison for longer than 60 minutes, and it's 84% pilsner.

 

[archthered]

Probably not NECESSARY but it may add complexity as the Maillard reactor goes on, depending on what you have going on I'd give it a shot just to see, but that depends on how much time you have.

 

[triethylborane]

120 min, hmm wonder if the recipe reflects low efficiency mash and excess sparge water corrected by boil off.

Certainly no reason to do it 120, no reason for 90, no hop utilization issues.

 

[Lefou]

I don't even like to boil for the prescribed one hour ... just long enough to get my hot break and hop levels in the ballpark.

 

[day_trippr]

So this will probably turn out to be folklore, but one alleged benefit of longer vs shorter boil is better coagulation of proteins (and maybe long carbs - that one I'm not sure about) so more junk drops out faster.

That said, without seeing the recipe and having some familiarity with the source I'd have to say two hours for a stout seems excessive. I'm actually doing another 10 gallon batch of my 107 point triple chocolate imperial honey stout (it really is a mouthful ) this weekend and I'll be doing a 60 minute boil as usual.

[edit] It may well be an efficiency thing as mentioned earlier, where a large sparge is used and countered with a long boil-off...

Cheers!

 

[eric19312]

I do 120 min boils about every 4th batch cause I get distracted lautering and collect too much wort. Don't see much difference in the resulting beer....

 

[eric19312]

I don't even like to boil for the prescribed one hour ... just long enough to get my hot break and hop levels in the ballpark.

I like your avatar Lefou!

 

[Lefou]

Yes, the avatar was a cropping of the three historical monks made somewhat famous in a painting that hangs within the Paulaner brewery in Munich. I sorta "stole" it because I feel brewing and beer has a sort of spiritual quality associated with it... that, and Paulaner weisse was one of the first German beers I truly liked.

 

[Morrey]

The recipe I am following really didn't get into water volumes other than saying this is a 5.5G batch into fermenter. Grain bill-nothing unusual-base malts, roasted barley 1#, chocolate .5# and black patent .25#. Fuggles at 60 and 20. This is a standard (looking) recipe, so I am not sure why 120 min is called for.

Interesting addition: I am visiting Asheville NC while posting this, and I asked a brewer at Highland (formerly of Stone) what their opinion was of this 120 min boil. Besides wasting propane for no apparent reason (Malliard nor caramelization), it was suggested to add in 2 ounces of Melanoidin which would give the beer about the same gains as the longer boil. Either this was a crazy statement or I just learned something exceptionally important here.

 

[Lefou]

Have a look at the fifth paragraph down. It refers to extra boil times for melanoidin.
http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/melanoidin.htm

 

[Morrey]

Have a look at the fifth paragraph down. It refers to extra boil times for melanoidin.
http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/melanoidin.htm

That was a very spot-on article you linked for me...thanks!!!

So the information I was given was actually pretty accurate to either boil longer or add in some Melanoidin Malts. Very good, always learning.

 

[mabrungard]

There is little value in extended boiling time for a dry stout. The style does not rely on melanoidins for flavor. 60 min is fine.