No Bittering?

[rodwha]

I've seen a few of these, mostly on the British forum I'm a member of, but they are doing a very short boil with no bittering addition.

This has made me wonder what an IPA would be like if I split the hops evenly at 20 and 5 mins for 70 IBU's, and then gave it a dry hop too.

I'd think you'd be missing the "bitter" part of the hops by skipping the bittering addition.

Maybe I need to brew top a bunch of IPA's one month...

 

[jro238]

You can definitely get bitterness out of a 20 minute addition but you're going to need a lot more hops to get the same bittering compared to a 60 minute addition.

If doing grain and not extract then I would very strongly discourage boiling for any less than an hour. If doing extract then it shouldn't really matter.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Pretty common technique often called "hop bursting". No early addition (although often still a full boil, just no hops until the end). I've never done it myself, but there's a large number of hoppy beers brewed that way.

As far as the short boil, if you're doing extract and topping off you only really need to boil long enough to sanitize the wort, get whatever break you're going to get (I never got anywhere near as much hot break doing extract as I do with all-grain, but I still got some), and extract whatever bitterness, then slamming all the hops into a 15 or 20 minute boil is a great plan.

With all grain beers you need to worry about DMS, which especially with Pilsner malt requires a longer boil. But there's also the collecting of enough runnings to maintain decent efficiency, although that one's debatable as to how important or significant it is.

The only problem with doing a "hop bursting" sort of mechanism is in beers without much hop character. You need to up the hop volume to get the same bitterness, and with later additions preserving more volatiles, it may impart hop character you don't necessarily want. Although for hoppy beers, seems like a great technique to me.

 

[Queequeg]

You still need to do a 60min boil, just all the additions are after 20mins. You still get isomerization of the alpha acid, you get get less for each addition. If you want 70 IBU's the amount of hops you be using would be a lot more than if you did a single 60 min addition and an addition at knockout.

As such even though additions at 20 and 10 min are boiled for some time you still get a lot of aroma/flavour carry over. Also the short boiling produces a lot of oxidation products that remain in the finish product that you don't get some prominently with knockout or dry hop.

I have only ever hopbursted one beer, but the hop flavour was pretty intense. It did however diminish quite quickly after bottling. But for the first few weeks it was very hoppy. I used summit and you really could taste the tangerine.

I fact I sent you the recipe. I think I dry hopped with 2oz as opposed to 1.5oz though.

 

[rodwha]

I thought DMS was strictly a pilsner malt problem?

 

[Queequeg]

Just checked, that hopbursted recipe I sent for refernce, I used 6oz of hops, and they were all high AA variates including Columbus at 15ish % and I only went for 50 IBU's.
If you was going to go for 70 IBU's or/and use varities lower in AA you are going to be looking at 7-8oz of hops. If you up the dryhop from my modest 2oz to 5oz you would be looking at perhaps 12oz of hops.

That really explains why hopbursted IPA's come out so hoppy.

 

[Queequeg]

I thought DMS was strictly a pilsner malt problem?

It exists in all malt supposedly. 90 mins is the standard boil for Pilsner because of the extra DMS.

 

[boydster]

Are you looking to do an extract recipe, or all-grain? As was mentioned, if it is extract you really only need to boil long enough to do your hop additions. I have an extract wit recipe that only requires a 15 minute boil. On the other hand, with all-grain, you may need to do a 60 minute boil to drive off DMS precursors, waiting to add hops until later in the boil.

Even without a 60 minute hop addition, you will still get bitterness. You just need more hops to get the same bitterness that you would expect from a longer boil. The tradeoff is that you also get to retain a lot more hop aroma and flavor, which is perfect for IPAs.

 

[rodwha]

I'm thinking, if I try a trial session, to do a typical low hop bittering addition for 60 mins as usual and then try a 40 min bittering and a no bittering batch and keep the hops even with the flavor/aroma additions as i usually do.

I'll need another small food grade bucket, but I'm thinking of an identical batch of say 5.8% and running the IBU's up to 70 to see what i get and split up a pack of US-05 between them (5.25 gals).

 

[rodwha]

I do partial mashes with about 40-50% extract. dealing with a 5 gal pot and doing 6 gal batches (for now as I'm eyeing an 8 gal pot).

 

[Qhrumphf]

I thought DMS was strictly a pilsner malt problem?

DMS precursor is definitely far more abundant in Pilsner malt, but it's also present in other base malts as well. I'd have to double check, but I believe that, like many things, DMS precursor is reduced with kilning (converted from SMM or whatever the precursor actually is that I can't recall, into DMS and then driven off during kilning). So the darker the malt, the less issue. I don't know if Munich malt would have any appreciable DMS precursor at all, and your crystal and roasted malts shouldn't have any at all. But the other lighter base malts (2 row, Maris Otter/English Pale Malt, Vienna, etc) still need enough of a boil to drive it off. Hence a 60 minute standard boil, and a 90 minute boil for beers with Pilsner malt.

 

[rodwha]

I do 4 gal boils and do not use the lid so I suppose it's a non issue for the most part, though i have done a couple of brews in which I only boiled for 45 mins.

And with that in mind, as I usually use 2-row, how does that work out if I only do a 45 min boil with a few pounds of 2-row? I can't say I've noticed any creamed corn flavors...

 

[rodwha]

Isn't DME toxic? Seems I read that somewhere.

 

[Qhrumphf]

For reference: http://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2519-what-is-hopbursting-and-what-can-i-expect-from-this-technique

 

[WayFrae]

I do partial mashes with about 40-50% extract. dealing with a 5 gal pot and doing 6 gal batches (for now as I'm eyeing an 8 gal pot).

Just get a 10 gallon pot. I just barely got a new 10 gallon pot and I am already wishing I would have went with a 15 gallon pot. I have decided to just always get one size bigger than you initially think will be enough.

 

[rodwha]

I'll be happy enough with full boils now that I have in mind to build an immersion chiller.

And I like variety and so at 6 gal batches I can squeeze in a third batch in a month every so often. As much as I love beer and brewing I like my other hobbies too and they cry for attention every so often.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I have a hard time picking up on DMS myself unless it's in high concentration and the beer is warm. 45 minutes may be enough to drive it off with 2 row, I don't know. I'm assuming you were asking if DMS was toxic, not DME. And I would assume that like many things, it's toxic in high enough concentration. However, even in the worst case scenario it wouldn't be an issue in the concentrations we're talking about.

Sure enough, looked up an MSDS for DMS: http://www.cpchem.com/msds/100000013358_SDS_US_EN.PDF

LD50 in rats is apparently 5,000mg/kg. Which is on the order of magnitudes greater than the concentrations were talking about (we're talking concentrations in <200 parts per billion where you start to notice it).

So unless you're directly consuming pure DMS, toxicity is not an issue.

 

[rodwha]

Thanks for the link!