No boil homebrew?

[saucebag]

So I recently watched a couple videos, both from Australians, who brewed with Coopers from the can, but all they did was dump it in, with water, sugar, yeast, no heating, no boiling. very interesting. Has anyone tried this vs. boiling and did you find a taste difference? this seems like a super lazy way to make beer fast, very interesting.
Of course, he didn't add any hops or any other adjuncts.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Welcome to HomeBrewTalk @saucebag .

The idea of "no heating, no boiling" extract-based brewing has been around for decades.

• Basic Brewing Radio Aug 25 2005 / Nov 17 2005 talks briefly about not boiling LME/DME - including potential reasons for not doing it.
• Brewing Engineering, 2e (2014) has a couple of pages on the idea - including reasons where the technique can ruin a batch.
• HomeBrewTalk (2019) has a pair of 'no boil' topics with recipes. Many of the recipes use a 'no boil (but pasteurized)' approach.
• In 2022, across the various home brewing forums (AHA forum, /r/homebrewing, HomeBrewTalk), there were a couple of topics on ruined batches related to adding LME in a 'no boil' situation.

this seems like a super lazy way to make beer fast

​

It works (see the 2019 topics here at HomeBrewTalk)​

​

until it doesn't (see the 2022 topics in various forums)​

​

as explained in 2005 and 2014.​

​

---

edits: revised to use the phrase "no heating, no boiling" (rather than "no boil") to more clearly differentiate two different approaches to brewing with 'extract'.

 

[madscientist451]

I make extract with steeping grain/mini mash brews when I'm pressed for time.
I heat up water for the steeping grains and at the same time get about a gallon of water boiling for the hops.
I let the steeping grains sit for about an 45 minutes or an hour or so, then pull the grain bag and stir in the extract.
I heat it up to about 180 and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. I've read that you really only need to hold the temp at 150F or so, but I go a little higher. Sometimes I'll toss some late addition hops in when it gets to 180.
So the whole "brew day" is about an hour and 15 minutes.
I only boil a portion of the brewing water with the hops, there's no need to boil the whole thing. I'm using my kitchen stove, so there's less waiting to get the big kettle boiling.
Doing this you're supposed to make some adjustments because you are boiling the hops in plain water, but I haven't had any problems following the recipes as they are.
I set the brew kettle and the smaller pot with the hops out on the back porch and in the morning, dump them in the fermenter.
The coopers extract already has hops in it so you don't need to boil that all.
I once tried using some pre-hopped extract that came with a Mr. Beer fermenter I bought on line, and I really didn't like the taste, however the extract was old, out of date.
So yeah, you can get the pre-hopped extract and throw a brew together really fast, but I prefer to take a little extra time, use some steeping grain and boil some hops in an effort to obscure the extract flavor.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

So I recently watched a couple videos, both from Australians, who brewed with Coopers from the can, but all they did was dump it in, with water, sugar, yeast, no heating, no boiling. very interesting. Has anyone tried this vs. boiling and did you find a taste difference? this seems like a super lazy way to make beer fast, very interesting.
Of course, he didn't add any hops or any other adjuncts.

Those are called HME kits. Hopped Malt Extract (HME). The work of mashing and boiling with hops has been done for you.

There are several different manufacturers of these style kits. Coopers and I believe Muntons still make them, among others.

They do make good beer with little effort.

Let us know if you decide to put one together and need some friendly advice.

 

[Miraculix]

Theoretically, it should be possible to boil the hops in just a few litres of water, remove them, add the extract for sanitation purposes at flame out and all the remainder of the water volume as cold water or combine everything in the fermenter at this point.

I bought myself some extract for one batch and will try exactly that. Should be no chill and really quickly done.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Those are called HME kits. Hopped Malt Extract (HME). The work of mashing and boiling with hops has been done for you.

There are several different manufacturers of these style kits. Coopers and I believe Muntons still make them, among others.

And the kits are designed and packaged with "no heating, no boiling" in mind.

Many American DME / LME products are not intended to be used this way - and with these products, "pasteurization is your friend".

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Once upon a time, and one time I did take a can of pre-hopped LME and mixed it with filtered tap water in a clean and sanitized bucket. I purchased the LME because I was tired of making darker than expected beer even with adding half the malt after the boil. I had already switched to all grain BIAB, but needed a beer ready quickly for a party. That LME brew was fairly popular amongst my guests, though the brew I “worked“ on was better and didn’t last as long.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Theoretically, it should be possible to boil the hops in just a few litres of water, remove them, add the extract for sanitation purposes at flame out and all the remainder of the water volume as cold water or combine everything in the fermenter at this point.

+1.

Brewing Engineering (as well as the authors blog (link) and articles from the mid-2010s here at HomeBrewTalk) is a good source of non-traditional approaches to brewing. The blog occasionally contains early versions of content in the book..

 

[Beermeister32]

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

... also at https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/papazian ...

 

[dwhite60]

If you haven't done a canned kit in the past ten years you should probably give one a try.

I did a Coopers Real Ale kit a couple years ago, by the instructions on the can, and was pretty happy with the resulting beer. Like any beer, the trick to these is temperature control. We all started out fermenting at room temp and probably lacking a little in sanitation so our results were less than good. We ended up blaming the kits but bad results were our process, not the kits.

Only problem with these things is they are obscenely expensive here in the states. Some of the Aussies on the Coopers DIY beer forum were shocked how much we paid for a canned kit especially when converted to Aussie dollars. They pay about half, in U.S. dollars, than we do. Seems they're cheaper in Europe too. Coopers Mexican Cervesa kit costs $24.99 here in the states. In Australia it's $18.99AUD which converts to $12.93USD

If you want fast, easy beer, this is the way to do it.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

Theoretically, it should be possible to boil the hops in just a few litres of water, remove them, add the extract for sanitation purposes at flame out and all the remainder of the water volume as cold water or combine everything in the fermenter at this point.

I bought myself some extract for one batch and will try exactly that. Should be no chill and really quickly done.

@Miraculix have you pursued this endeavor?

 

[Miraculix]

@Miraculix have you pursued this endeavor?

The parcel is still on it's travel to me. It has to cross the mighty ocean between the UK Islands and big old Europe. And what might be even a bigger time eater, it has to go through German customs.......

Should be here during the comming week, according to dhl, so next weekend might be the time. If I do not feel like brewing the big historical porter I am intending to brew as well.

 

[mscroggi]

I had no idea that a no boil kit was a thing. I ran across this video for a fermenter review. The brewer brewed two kits in an afternoon and I realized he literally put the kits in the fermenter, and pitched yeast. Wow..