First time brew, do I have a problem?

[rain164845]

I proceeded to start my first brew, a belgian wit with steeping grains etc. My stovetop eye is smaller than my brewpot base by a large margin. This led to trouble getting up to temps. I had a very light boil going on through the whole process. Is this a problem?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[Pilgarlic]

Other than somewhat diminished hops isomerization, probably not at all.

 

[rain164845]

good. Why do you have to boil malts for an hour? It seems excessive.
Thanks,

Joe

 

[nallanrex]

If you do allgrain you need to get rid of dms by boiling. Some malts contain more dms then others (pilsner malt comes to mind). So you would boil for 90 min.

If you use extract it is best to add most of it at the end of the boil.


Nick

 

[shanecb]

There's no huge need to add extract early on in the boil. Doing it later will help increase your hop utilization from the bittering hops, anyway. For example, the berliner weiss I'm going to be doing soon only has a 15min boil.

 

[ChshreCat]

good. Why do you have to boil malts for an hour? It seems excessive.
Thanks,

Joe

You didn't boil the grains, did you? Wasn't sure if by "malts" you meant "malted grains" or "malt extract".

The length of the boil is to get the bitterness out of the hops. A long boil time gives you bitterness with little flavor and no aroma. A moderate boil time gives you less bitterness, but more flavor and maybe a little aroma. A short boil time gives you aroma with little flavor and almost no bitterness from them. That's why you will have a 60 minute boil and hops added at various times to get bitterness, flavor and aroma from different hop additions.

If you were using prehopped extract only, you wouldn't really need to boil at all.

You don't need a really vigorous boil. Just enough that the liquid is rolling a bit and turning itself over is just right. Some folks crank it up until it's boiling like crazy and it's just not necessary. So long as you had bubbles and it was rolling, you did just great.

 

[rain164845]

I think it will turn out just fine, I steeped the grains without boiling, then it took about an hour to get boiling, at which point I added the malt extracts. It really was a pain in the butt on my stove. I probably need a taller skinnier pot, but I got a deal on this one. I'm kind of at the point where I could keep my pot and buy a gas cooker, or buy a better pot for the same price.
Joe

 

[KevinW]

How big was your boil?

When I did stove top boils I would cover the top of the stove with foil and kept the lid on until I reached a full boil then took it off.(watching constantly for boilovers)

Of course the gas cooker and large pot is the best way to go, in my opinion! If you can be patient and look around at places like goodwill or even craigslist you could find some amazing deals on equipment. My converted(by me) 52qt aluminum kettle with ball valve and sight glass cost me about $75.00 total! Yes I have an aluminum kettle(for those SS only people)

 

[rain164845]

I just tried the first bottle. It is AWESOME! That's just after 3 full days in the bottle.

 

[pksmitty]

As good as it tastes now, you will be well rewarded if you give your beer time to mature. The general rule of thumb is 3 weeks at 70 degrees in the bottle. This gives the beer time to fully carbonate and the flavors time to marry and blend. After three weeks, put some in the fridge for at least 24 hours to allow the CO2 to go back into solution in the beer.

Time is your friend! While you're waiting, get another batch going.