Boil with lid on??

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srober19

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Hey Guys,
I am new here! I just finished up my first batch, a BB IPA!! I am so excited. My question is this. For the boil, should I boil with a lid on the pot? I did this on my batch because I was worried that too much liquid would boil out. But then I began to think about it more, and if I did boil without a lid, could I not compensate for the evaporated liquid just by adding more water at the end? Thanks for your replys and I look forward to accessing this great database of knowledge.
 
Nope - leave the lid off. There are things in your wort (such as DMS) that you want to evaporate out. If you are doing partial boils, you can certainly just add more top off water at the end. If you are doing full boils, you can just start with a higher volume.

:mug:
 
I will use the lid to help get it to a boil quicker and will occasionally put the lid back or half on during the boil to increase intensity, but try to allow for steam to boil off.
 
From How To Brew - Boiling and Cooling

Covering the pot with the lid can help with heat retention and help you achieve your boil, but it can also lead to trouble. Murphy's Law has its own brewing corollary: "If it can boil over, it will boil over." Covering the pot and turning your back on it is the quickest way to achieve a boilover. If you cover the pot, watch it like a hawk.

Once you achieve a boil, only partially cover the pot, if at all. Why? Because in wort there are sulfur compounds that evolve and boil off. If they aren't removed during the boil, the can form dimethyl sulfide which contributes a cooked cabbage or corn-like flavor to the beer. If the cover is left on the pot, or left on such that the condensate from the lid can drip back in, then these flavors will have a much greater chance of showing up in the finished beer.
 
thanks for the help guys. hopefully i didn't ruin it by boiling it with the lid on. now I know what to do on the next time!!
 
srober19 said:
thanks for the help guys. hopefully i didn't ruin it by boiling it with the lid on. now I know what to do on the next time!!

Let us know how it turned out. I'm afraid you made canned corn, at least by the smell of it. The aroma compound DMS, that the others mentioned, smells like canned corn.

Kai
 
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