Hopping with an Extract Brew - Questions

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JoefromPhilly

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Greetings,

I am brand new to this, and and was reading about how extract brewing does not make full use of the bittering hops, namely that you are not boiling the full wort, and thus, it will not absorb all of the alpha acids.

Have any of you experienced any hops-related issues, and if so, how do you adjust for the fact that you are only boiling a portion of your wort and then just dumping it into the fermenter with the rest of the water?

Also, what beer bottles work well if you want to bottle? I had a case of Stella, and I had plenty of capping problems. The bottles I got from my LHBS worked perfectly.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
You'll get slightly better hop utilization with a full boil, but it's nothing to lose any sleep over. One way to compensate for the small boil is to do a late extract addition. This will increase hop utilization and reduce caramelization as well. The bottom line is that you won't notice if your brew has a few less IBU's because of a partial boil.

As far as bottles are concerned, I just reuse the bottles I get when I buy micro's at the store. Most every bottle out there (excluding twist tops) should work just fine.
 
What would be the best way to do the late extract addition? As in, how much of the extract should I boil initially with, say 2 gallons of water? Then, at what stage do I add in the rest of the extract? Also, would I us the full amount of the DME with the initial boil?

- Joe
 
I've just started using the late extract addition technique. I haven't tried the beer yet, so no opinions on taste. I just put in half of the sugars (by eye, I didn't measure) at the beginning of the boil. At 15 to the end, I added the rest.

The only bottles I've had trouble with are Pilsner Urquell bottles. I hunch they would be ok with a bench capper, but I've only got a hand capper. There isn't enough of a lip for the capper to grab onto. I don't drink Stella, so I can't say why you're having trouble with them.
 
What would be the best way to do the late extract addition? As in, how much of the extract should I boil initially with, say 2 gallons of water? Then, at what stage do I add in the rest of the extract? Also, would I us the full amount of the DME with the initial boil?

- Joe

Just add around 25-50% of your extract at the beginning of the boil, then add the remaining extract with 10 minutes left. Just remember when adding Liquid extract to remove the pot from the heat to avoid scorching. The late extract addition works great regardless of what type of extract your using.
 
Thanks. My solution will be to do a 2-pot boil, and split the ingredients, including the hops. I was reading in the Hops Special issue of the brew magazine (BYO, I think) that if you do a partial boil and even with a late addition, you do not get full utilization of the hops. I have no problem putting two pots on the stove, and then just dumping them both into the bucket when cooled.

Thanks for the input.

- Joe
 
I am brand new to this, and and was reading about how extract brewing does not make full use of the bittering hops, namely that you are not boiling the full wort, and thus, it will not absorb all of the alpha acids.

Partial boil and extract brewing are somewhat orthogonal. You can do full-boil extract recipes, and you could theoretically do partial-boil all-grain recipes. So while extract brewing is a lot more likely to be partial-boil, the hops usage thing is more properly a partial-boil property (rather than strictly linked to extract brewing).

Have any of you experienced any hops-related issues, and if so, how do you adjust for the fact that you are only boiling a portion of your wort and then just dumping it into the fermenter with the rest of the water?

Check your recipe. Most of the _extract_ recipes you'll find online are for a partial boil (usually 3 gallons) and so they'll use the right amount of hops to correct for this utilization. If they've done that, you don't want to alter things again.

Even very simple recipe tools (e.g. the free The Beer Recipator - Home ) will include a "how big is your boil" entry so they can calculate hops usage correctly.

Here's a comparison (using the Tinseth method to estimate IBUs).

Suppose you're making a 1.064 OG ale, and you're bittering with 10.5% aa Centenniel hops.

To hit ~30 IBUs, you'd need (assuming 60 minute boil):
about 1.4 oz of Centenniel with a 3 gallon partial boil early-addition
about 1 oz of Centenniel with a 5 gallon full boil early-addition
about .8 oz of Centenniel with a 3 gallon partial boil, late addition (1/3 up front)
about .7 oz of Centenniel with a 5 gallon full boil, late addition (1/3 up front)
 
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