Vigor of Boil and HSA

[micraftbeer]

I might be remembering this wrong, but I thought one of the HSA-reduction process techniques was a low vigor boil. But as I was doing a low rolling boil yesterday, I also remembered @Bilsch mentioning that boiling water gets rid of all dissolved oxygen. So that had me thinking that vigorous boil or rolling boil, both would be equal in terms of HSA. Can anyone clarify this?

 

[doug293cz]

I think the lower vigor boil is more about minimizing darkening (due to maillard reactions) during the boil. Rate of SMM/DMS elimination and alpha acid isomerization are only a function of boil temp (which will be lower at higher altitudes), and not boil vigor, so high boil vigor is not necessary for anything.

Brew on

 

[micraftbeer]

Yeah, I went to an interesting presentation at HomeBrewCon in Portland a couple years ago where Martin Brungard was talking about boiling, with good data with regard to SMM/DMS generation for different malts versus boil time. And he also covered that you just need the circulation/movement of wort, the vigor doesn't correlate to greater SMM off-gassing.

Maybe the lower vigor from the darkening perspective was just something that got rolled up in "LODO process for making German lagers".

 

[doug293cz]

Yeah, I went to an interesting presentation at HomeBrewCon in Portland a couple years ago where Martin Brungard was talking about boiling...

I was there at Martin's talk - very worthwhile.

You didn't happen to get a taste of "Golden Gorilla" (~16% ABV imperial Belgian triple) on club night did you?

Brew on

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

It's also a Zymurgy article (May 2019, p 36) by Martin.

 

[SFC Rudy]

IMO, a fast rolling boil is a waste of propane/electricity. The wort remains the same temperature, only difference is how much water is boiled off.

 

[mabrungard]

As you'll find in the talk and article, the important thing that is sort of related to HSA and beer damage, was that excessive heat stress from overactive or extended boiling creates aging precursors that you may not want in most beers. (you may want them in a beer that should have aged character, ie: barleywine, etc.)