Late Extract Addition - Blonde Ale

[mgortel]

I am planning on brewing a Blonde Ale this Saturday and wanted to do a late extract addition.

2 lbs Pale(Extra Light) DME in at the start
4 lbs Pale (Extra Light) DME for last 15 mins

I understand that by doing this I will get better hop utilization resulting in higher IBU than if I add all extract at beginning of boil.

Beersmith gives me 25.8 IBU if adding ALL extract at beginning
Beersmith goves me 39 IBU if doing the late addition mentioned above.

So I will need to adjust my hop schedule if doing this to get my IBU’s back down….

Just wanted to make sure this seems correct to the more experienced brewers out there. Seems like an awefully big difference in IBU’s.
Any thoughts?

 

[ThePearsonFam]

Hmm... I'm surprised that there's that big of a difference too. I never did late additions when I was doing extract but I'm very interested to see where the thread goes.

As you stated, it does make sense that the IBUs will increase but I'm shocked at the amount the IBUs are predicted to increase.

 

[mightynintendo]

Some older beer recipes call for boiling the hops in just plain old water separately from the wort, then combining the two at the end for the final product.

 

[unionrdr]

I posted in another thread discussing this sort of thing. But anyway,When I brewed my Summer Pale ale (we just finished drinking the last of it the other day),I did only a 1 1/4G boil & made a 15 min "hop tea". I then pulled the hop sack,& mixed in 3lbs of Munton's plain extra light DME & the cooper's OS lager can from '09. Had a starter going for the old yeast. 4th week in primary was a dry hop with 2nd ounce of hops (2 dif hops).
After 3 weeks in the bottles at room temp,& 6 days in the fridge,it was really good. Salvator doppel bock color,buiscotti like sweetness. The Kent Golding "tea",along with the 1 week Willamette dry hop made a lemon grass,ripe fruit kind of quality. With spicy,floral notes under that. Great!
But 4-5 weeks in,the sweetness changed to a light to medium toasty quality,the hops left only some bittering toward the end. Had some brightness left from the Kent Golding,but that's about it.
On this batch I brewed after helping the wife with her 1st one /grains on NHB day,I changed things a bit. Same basic recipe,but boiled 2.5G of water. Added all 3lbs of plain light DME (Munton's again),Which took about 5mins to do & get through a small hot break. Then added 1oz US Perle hops,setting timer for 20mins. At ten mins,added .5oz of Czech Saaz hops. At flame out,removed BK from heat,added other .5oz of Saaz for 10mins. Removed bag & stirred in 1 can of cooper's OS draught. Only re-hydrated the cooper's ale yeast this time. Chilled wort down to 70F,added to same FV,topped off to 23L (6.072G),stirred very will after ruffly pouring in wort/top off water. Got OG of 1.046,pitched & sealed. Should turn out better,hope aroma/flavor qualities last longer this way. Seems like it should,since it's more like what is normally done.

 

[cshamilton]

I don't know if the real difference will be that big, you should get better hop utilization though. I've done late additions on my last two batches and have reduced the bittering hops to about 60%, but leave the 30 min ones alone, add 2nd half of extract at 20 min, more hops between 2 and 15 min depending on recipe.

 

[erikpete18]

Yeah, I'd just cut down on the 60 min. hops a little. If its a kit and it came with all the hops, you could move whatever you take out of the 60 min. addition to a 0-15min. addition if you wanted a little more flavor. The other thing you could do would be to move the 60 min. addition up until it hit the correct IBU you were going for (say 45 min. instead?). In that case, there wouldn't be any reason to boil 60 min., so you could just boil for 45 min. and decrease some of the darkening reactions that the early malt will undergo, making your blond, I don't know, blonder?

 

[Joe_K]

Aren't they just displacing the volume that the extract takes up? If you add your extract and then top off to your boil volume, you would have less water and less hop utilization. If you fill to your boil volume first, then add the extract, I don't understand how adding some of the extract later would change the IBU's. The latter is what I do. Maybe someone more knowledgable could chime in.

 

[mightynintendo]

Aren't they just displacing the volume that the extract takes up? If you add your extract and then top off to your boil volume, you would have less water and less hop utilization. If you fill to your boil volume first, then add the extract, I don't understand how adding some of the extract later would change the IBU's. The latter is what I do. Maybe someone more knowledgable could chime in.

There is a hop alpha acid utilization factor that is affected by the gravity of the liquid in which the hops oils are boiled. Higher gravities lower the utilization factor.

 

[erikpete18]

The idea with the late extract addition and IBUs is that the amount of alpha acids you can dissolve in the wort will change with the gravity. If you are boiling in half the amount and your wort will wind up being 1.050, that means that if you add all the extract at the beginning its actually 1.100 when you add the bittering hops. Because the gravity is so high, you can't dissolve the same amount of AAs you normally would, so you can add the extract later and decrease the gravity the bittering hops are boiled in.

I've heard different theories for why it happens, but I don't know that I've seen any actual research on what is happening. It could be that the increase in sugar concentration prevents AAs from dissolving because there's less room between water molecules. Also heard a theory that the other components of the extract (proteins, etc) can bind up alpha acids and prevent them from dissolving. Not sure what it actually is, but I know I accidentally turned a pale ale into an IPA one time (not that that's bad ).

 

[Joe_K]

The idea with the late extract addition and IBUs is that the amount of alpha acids you can dissolve in the wort will change with the gravity. If you are boiling in half the amount and your wort will wind up being 1.050, that means that if you add all the extract at the beginning its actually 1.100 when you add the bittering hops. Because the gravity is so high, you can't dissolve the same amount of AAs you normally would, so you can add the extract later and decrease the gravity the bittering hops are boiled in.

I've heard different theories for why it happens, but I don't know that I've seen any actual research on what is happening. It could be that the increase in sugar concentration prevents AAs from dissolving because there's less room between water molecules. Also heard a theory that the other components of the extract (proteins, etc) can bind up alpha acids and prevent them from dissolving. Not sure what it actually is, but I know I accidentally turned a pale ale into an IPA one time (not that that's bad ).

Thanks for the response, it makes sense. I do have a personal experience which is why I thought it had to do with the volume of the boil. Keep in mind I'm still a noob doing extract brews. I've done a LHBS APA kit twice, the first time I added all the extract at the beginning. The second time I added 3lbs at the beginning and 3lbs with 15 min remaining. The late addition made the beer lighter, I couldn't detect any difference in bitterness. Maybe it's such a small difference that it's negligible. Since I still have a few bottles of each batch left I may have to do a side by side test.

 

[unionrdr]

I'm on the fence about that myself,Erik. I made a "hop tea" with only 1.25G of water in the BK for 15mins on my Summer Pale with 1oz of Kent Golding. Dry hop with 1oz Willamette for 1week. The hops flavor/aroma/bittering was subdued,but good. It was philosophized that the "hop tea" could be a bit overpowering. So much for that theory.
In this batch,I boiled 2.5G of water,then added all 3lbs of the plain light DME,boiling for about 5mins to get it mixed in,& past the small hot break. Not to mention,hoping it might darken slightly,so as to reproduce the Salvatlor doppel bock color I got last time with the old LME can & Munton's DME. Anyway,added 1oz US Perle hops for timed 20 mins. At ten mins,added .5oz Czech Saaz hops. .5oz Saaz for 10 mins at flame out. Then stirred in the cooper's OS draught can. All fresh stuff this time,vs old OS lager/yeast last time. Looks like I won't get the color,but hop utilization should be better. I'll report back when it's ready. Looks like I'll get a nice,golden color. Light Bavarian ale?

 

[mgortel]

Great responses....and great info.....thank you.

My biggest concern is that the increase in IBU's seems excessive AS CALCULATED by BeerSmith.....I would hate to adjust the boil time to adjust for the late extract addition to find that I have 5 gallons of beer that is too malty ......

ANyone have any experience with Beersmith for adding late extract and adjusting the hop boil time etc.....does it seem to work out ok???

ThankS!

 

[Yooper]

Great responses....and great info.....thank you.

My biggest concern is that the increase in IBU's seems excessive AS CALCULATED by BeerSmith.....I would hate to adjust the boil time to adjust for the late extract addition to find that I have 5 gallons of beer that is too malty ......

ANyone have any experience with Beersmith for adding late extract and adjusting the hop boil time etc.....does it seem to work out ok???

ThankS!

Nah, don't worry about it. The theory is that the IBUs will increase, and they may, but not that much. If you're really really worried, you could decrease the bittering addition only by 15%, but I wouldn't. I would just do the recipe, and the late addition, as written.