Is a 60-minute boil really necessary?

[TripleC223]

With a few brews under my belt, I'm now questioning the necessity of a full 60-minute boil for extract brews. In playing around with a few recipes of my own, it seems that, at least in terms of IBU calculations, you can get away with a 45-minute or even a 30-minute boil depending on what you're shooting for.

For example, for a Hefeweizen, would you really want to conduct a full 60-minute boil if you're only aiming for 10 IBUs? Even for a pale ale or IPA, I wouldn't want anything over 60 IBU, so couldn't I shorten my brew day by using a small bittering charge (0.5 oz) and then hop-bursting over the final 20 to flameout?

I understand there are DMS concerns for all-grain/BIAB brewing when it comes to boil time, but it seems that you should have a little more flexibility with extract brewing.

FWIW, I've tested my theory on a 1-gallon IPA (45 mins) and a 5-gallon saison (30 mins), both of which are still a few weeks away from glass. I guess we'll see.

 

[bradleypariah]

There really is a difference in bitterness based on the number of minutes that hops are in the boil. Some people swear that only 60-minute additions and late additions matter, and to forget the 30-minute stuff, but there's evidence that's wrong. Keep it in mind that people don't agree there, and keep in mind that just about everyone agrees that a 30-minute boil won't give you 60 minutes-worth of hop bitterness. It matters. It doesn't mean your results won't be tasty, but it makes a difference.

Other than that, once you've boiled for about 15 minutes, chlorine is gone, wort is sterilized. It's arguable whether or not boil time even matters for all-grain. The people who warn about DMS are starting to back off on the belief that it comes from short boil times.

This is purely anecdotal, but worth a listen - the batch in question was only boiled for 15 minutes:
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/f/5/1/f51...97555002&hwt=b4f8594e007baefb6497ddbc4976223b

 

[mattdee1]

I think the whole "you need the long boil to drive off DMS" thing is one of those homebrew boogeymen that gets repeated over and over again because people read it and believe it, but that rarely ever rears its ugly head in practice. I know I've done many 40ish minute boils and never tasted anything resembling creamed corn (gross), even in pilsner-heavy brews.

Aside from that, I think all you need to do when choosing a boil time is make sure you take into consideration the impacts so you don't have any unintended side effects.

- boil needs to be long enough to kill bugs in the wort (does not take very long)
- boil needs to be long enough to boil off the planned amount of wort such that your target OG is reached
- needs to provide enough kettle time for hops to get your desired hop bitterness and flavor

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't see why you couldn't do a shorter boil so long as you adjust your hops additions to compensate. You'd just have to remember that the further away from the 60 minute mark you get with your hops, the less bitterness and more aroma and flavor you're going to get from your additions.

For a 30 minute boil, you'd need more bittering hops at the beginning in order to hit a given IBU, and even then those hops are going to contribute more than just bitterness to the beer. That might mean that you'd want to avoid hops that are traditionally used only for bittering because their flavor contributions might not be up to par. I suppose it comes down to a mix of what style you're trying to hit and what kinds of flavors you prefer. There's no reason I see that you can't make delicious beer that way if you think it out though.

 

[Mainer]

I have a hoppy saison recipe that I only boil for 30 minutes. It's a lot of citrusy c-hops. so I prefer not to have any 60 minute hop additions.

My Berliner Weisse only gets a 15 minute boil, because that one doesn't get any hop addition at all, because hops inhibit lactobacillus. (For a 5 gallon batch, I brew a 4-gallon beer with no hops at all and ferment it on lacto only, then I brew a 1 gallon batch with just a whiff of Saaz and pitch that into the carboy with the german ale yeast. Works like a charm to get that real tart character.)

 

[helibrewer]

Depends on who you talk to. Charlie Bamforth (UC Davis) and the American Brewer's Guild both recommend at LEAST 60 minute boils. Evaporation and isomerizing alpha acids are just two of the many reactions going on in a vigorous boil. It is also volatizing sulfur compounds and DMS (a gas at 90C), precipitates high molecular weight proteins, and forms new flavor compounds through Maillard reactions (Reducing sugars + amino acids -> reductones which react to form many flavor compounds).

Breweries would not pay the cost of calandria systems in their kettle if vigorous, full boils were not important.

 

[JohnSand]

On a relaxed brewday, I mash 60 and boil 60+.
In a hurry I mash 30, boil 40. No complaints.

 

[freisste]

It depends on the exact question you are asking. If you want to make beer (i.e., fermented sugar that came from grain), then no - you can make beer with no boil at all. It will be sour as you won't kill the lacto in your grain, but you'll ferment sugar into a drink.

If you're asking if it makes a difference, then yes, for myriad reasons already mentioned.

 

[bernardsmith]

But the OP's question was about using extract and the need to boil extract. Technically, the people making the extract created the mash and boiled the wort so what you now have is the fermentable malt. Do you need to boil that? Why? To sanitize what has already been sanitized? Boiling the DME is like wearing belt and braces (suspenders). Either the belt keeps your pants from falling or it doesn't but if it does why wear suspenders and if it doesn't then why wear the belt? Now, do you need to boil water to isomerize the hops? That is a very different question. Not a serious brewer - I prefer to make mead - but I would argue that at the very most you might want to add boiling water to help more quickly dissolve the DME (or the LME) but even there I suspect that since DME is hydrophilic (I think that is the term) then steam will help it clump rather than help it dissolve.. But boiling DME for any length of time will simply darken the beer. If that's what you want then so be it... but is there really another reason to cook what has already been fully cooked?

 

[Mainer]

But the OP's question was about using extract and the need to boil extract. Technically, the people making the extract created the mash and boiled the wort so what you now have is the fermentable malt. Do you need to boil that? Why? To sanitize what has already been sanitized? Boiling the DME is like wearing belt and braces (suspenders). Either the belt keeps your pants from falling or it doesn't but if it does why wear suspenders and if it doesn't then why wear the belt? Now, do you need to boil water to isomerize the hops? That is a very different question. Not a serious brewer - I prefer to make mead - but I would argue that at the very most you might want to add boiling water to help more quickly dissolve the DME (or the LME) but even there I suspect that since DME is hydrophilic (I think that is the term) then steam will help it clump rather than help it dissolve.. But boiling DME for any length of time will simply darken the beer. If that's what you want then so be it... but is there really another reason to cook what has already been fully cooked?

When I do extract recipes (with steeped specialty grains) I do a full 60-minute boil with the steeped wort, but I don't add the DME until 20 or 30 minutes before flameout.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I am guilty of making a lazy beer for guests that are macro drinkers/not into craft by mixing hopped LME and water right in the fermentation bucket. The only heat I needed was for getting the extract out of the can. It wasn't my favorite, but company liked it. Of course, there is little control for bitterness this way, accept for adding more. So this way, beer can be made without boiling at all. Is it best practice? Probably not, but it can be done

 

[bernardsmith]

I am guilty of making a lazy beer for guests that are macro drinkers/not into craft by mixing hopped LME and water right in the fermentation bucket. The only heat I needed was for getting the extract out of the can. It wasn't my favorite, but company liked it. Of course, there is little control for bitterness this way, accept for adding more. So this way, beer can be made without boiling at all. Is it best practice? Probably not, but it can be done

and interestingly, good bad or indifferent, hopped LME has been boiled for the amount of time the manufacturer has determined to be optimal time for the beer this ME was designed to make. Boiling for additional time (unless called for by the manufacturer's recipe) simply over-isomerizes the hops... But if that is the preference of others then that is their preference.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I don't recall what the directions were actually. But, I took about a gallon of it and racked it onto prickly pear, and later dry hopped it.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Test it yourself. Do a to 10 gallon batch. Pull off 5 gallons after 30 minutes and the remainder after 60. Ferment both in the same environment and see if they're any different. You can listen to what 1000 people say in the interweb, but nothing beats personal experience.

Both batches will be beer!!!

 

[madk]

I brew a lot of 30 minute batches, mainly because I teach a lot of brewing classes and there is too much dead time in a 60 minute boil. You'll have to tweak your recipes on both your bittering and late hop additions.

 

[Griffin495]

Look up 15 minute cascade pale ale. Lots have people have tried it and it seems like it gets good feedback. I brewed it awhile back and am planning on bottling it this weekend.

 

[ultravista]

Wouldn't using hop extract negate the need for a 60 minute boil? Does hop extracted oil produce more bitterness w/longer boils as pellets & whole cone does?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Over the last two weekends I made two all grain cream ales that were both boiled for 20 minutes. I used magnum for the bittering hop because I hear it provides little in the way of a flavor contribution and I could use a very small amount to reach my target IBU, which should further reduce it's impact on the flavor.

I'm doing this as a time saving experiment to see what I can get away with in brewing as I'm going to be having a baby very soon, and I'm going to need some strategies in my tool belt if I hope to get any brew days in after that. So far it seems like an overnight mash followed by a 20 minute boil is my best bet. I can spend about 30 minutes the night before setting up the mash and then wake up really early the next morning to have the beer finished before 9:00 AM.

 

[GrimBrewer]

Breweries would not pay the cost of calandria systems in their kettle if vigorous, full boils were not important.

Refering to profesional breweries has less meaning now to home brewers than it did in the past and may have even less mean to home bewers in the future.

A lot of brewing ideas taking from profesional is/was based on what turning out to be vodoo sciency or became voodoo sciency once the original princible/idea was forgotten. Too much anecdotal evedince. Probably due to the scale of a profesional brewer to home brewer and the risk factor a home brewer can ignore. Who is still racking to secondry?

Brulosopy done a few short boils wth no ill affect.

 

[Miraculix]

I am guilty of making a lazy beer for guests that are macro drinkers/not into craft by mixing hopped LME and water right in the fermentation bucket. The only heat I needed was for getting the extract out of the can. It wasn't my favorite, but company liked it. Of course, there is little control for bitterness this way, accept for adding more. So this way, beer can be made without boiling at all. Is it best practice? Probably not, but it can be done

If we would be talking all grain, I would say google raw ale recipe. Quite an old and very interesting style completely without cooking, only mashing.

 

[helibrewer]

Refering to profesional breweries has less meaning now to home brewers than it did in the past and may have even less mean to home bewers in the future.

A lot of brewing ideas taking from profesional is/was based on what turning out to be vodoo sciency or became voodoo sciency once the original princible/idea was forgotten. Too much anecdotal evedince. Probably due to the scale of a profesional brewer to home brewer and the risk factor a home brewer can ignore. Who is still racking to secondry?

Brulosopy done a few short boils wth no ill affect.

No ill effect doesn't mean much. The chemistry very clearly points to the advantages of vigorous boils and the impact on both hot and cold break.

 

[bradleypariah]

The chemistry very clearly points

Meh. Chemistry can say all it wants. If your taste buds don't know the difference, chemistry be damned. That's why the Brulosophy exbeeriments exist. If you can't tell, should you care?

I'm not disagreeing with your statement, I'm just saying that certain science facts don't matter to the average home brewer. I can't even begin to imagine trying to list out all the corners I cut, and I prefer my own beer to just about anything I can buy at the store. As far as I'm concerned, I make darn near the best beer on earth. No one on earth may agree with me, but that's the whole point. I don't salt and pepper my steak for someone else's pleasure.

That's why in my original reply, I pointed out that people don't agree on the answer here. I kinda feel like that's all anyone has to say. Everyone firmly believes what they believe, and they'll argue to death to get someone else to believe it, yet living by the opposite mindset is somehow still fine for other people. Neither opinion must mean much, then.

We all agree you shouldn't pitch yeast to 100*F wort. You won't find a single sane person who swears by it. Short boil times, however? You needn't look far to find someone who swears by it.

 

[bleme]

We all agree you shouldn't pitch yeast to 100*F wort. You won't find a single sane person who swears by it.

Well actually, there is a guy here....

 

[bradleypariah]

Well actually, there is a guy here....

You didn't use the Sarcastica font, so I have no idea if you're kidding.

 

[desabat]

Vigorous boils and prolonged boils are not the same. I try to get a vigorous boil for 30 min and it works but definitely worth it to compare long and short boils side by side for yourself.

 

[McKnuckle]

I was recently in England and toured several well-known breweries. The boil at these places is 90-120 minutes almost without exception. Why, one might ask, would a professional brewer - concerned with turnover and production rates - invest the extra time if it wasn't necessary to produce a particular outcome?

Consider that some of the grain bills are very simple, nearly all pale malt in some cases. Boiling longer concentrates the wort, darkening it in addition to producing a higher gravity from less volume of grist. So it can be a way to produce a darker color even with a very pale grist. There are also flavor outcomes from a longer boil.

Boiling longer is not just about hops utilization. So do we need to do this? No, obviously not. But I wouldn't discount it either, as just another tool at your disposal for manipulating the beer you brew.

 

[soccerdad]

Who defines 'vigorous boil', versus 'rolling boil' versus 'light boil'? Water boils at 212 F, right ? (100 C). Does it roll at 213? 214? Gain vigor at 215? Is there data that shows beer brewed at 215 tastes better than beer brewed at 212?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

depends on your elevation but I get your point here my water boils at 209

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Who defines 'vigorous boil', versus 'rolling boil' versus 'light boil'? Water boils at 212 F, right ? (100 C). Does it roll at 213? 214? Gain vigor at 215? Is there data that shows beer brewed at 215 tastes better than beer brewed at 212?

Water boils at a given setpoint. 212F unless you are at a higher elevation. A more vigorous boil drives off more water in the form of steam

 

[soccerdad]

Congratulations wsb - you are hereby appointed to the vigorous boil committee and will chair the subcommittee on measuring steam. If all goes well, we will develop the Vigorous Boil Police.

 

[TorMag]

Other than 15 minutes, what are you really getting by cutting your boil down from 60 to 45, in the scheme of things, are you getting anything out of shorter boil time? If 15 minutes is a make it or break it setting for you, maybe you shouldn't brew that day.... Things can go wrong that could cost you way more time than 15 minutes.

 

[RM-MN]

I was recently in England and toured several well-known breweries. The boil at these places is 90-120 minutes almost without exception. Why, one might ask, would a professional brewer - concerned with turnover and production rates - invest the extra time if it wasn't necessary to produce a particular outcome?

Consider that some of the grain bills are very simple, nearly all pale malt in some cases. Boiling longer concentrates the wort, darkening it in addition to producing a higher gravity from less volume of grist. So it can be a way to produce a darker color even with a very pale grist. There are also flavor outcomes from a longer boil.

Boiling longer is not just about hops utilization. So do we need to do this? No, obviously not. But I wouldn't discount it either, as just another tool at your disposal for manipulating the beer you brew.

Maybe they boil that long because they were taught by a brewer who boiled that long because they were taught by a brewer who boiled that long because he forgot the beer while having time with his lady.

 

[McKnuckle]

Maybe they boil that long because they were taught...

I'm sure you're teasing, but... Don't make the mistake of discounting that which was learned and passed along by those who came before us, just because it was "a long time ago and they didn't know anything back then."

Of course it would be entirely absurd to discount what generations of brewers practiced and learned during the 19th and 20th centuries. And it would also be a shame to not explore what you can learn on your own through personal empiricism. It's all good.