lager recipe question

[mdf191]

I have been looking around at various lager recipes, trying to create my own to brew a maibock. I found that most of the extract bock recipes by northern brewer called for adding a small portion of extract at the begining of the boil....and then adding the remaining malt only for the last 15 min of boil. Anyone know the reason for this detail? The only thing I can thing of is it is an attempt at preventing to much of the extract caramelizing.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Yup. It's to prevent the beer from getting too carmelized and dark.

It also increases the utilization of the hops.

 

[Professor Frink]

That is correct (in my best Chris Farley voice). When you're making a lighter beer with extract, you pretty much have to go with the late addition method, otherwise it's almost impossible to get a light colored beer.

 

[steve123]

I actually just stumbled on this technique like a week ago when I was looking up a Grand Cru and we did on out Cream Ale and our Blonde. Getting good color on the blonde for an Extract. I have never had a cream but it's lighter then the blonde. It's a good technique because that was the one thing we kept saying was wrong, our colors just kept being too dark.