I am still a beginner brewer with about 10 extract brews under my belt so far. I recently received a DVD copy of "How to Brew with Malt Extract" by John Palmer and Brad Smith, and at the end one of the things that was talked about was only adding about half of your extract at the beginning and adding the rest after the boil has finished. I have done a bit of further reading and research about this and it all makes sense to me except that in all the cases I have read, the brewer is only doing a partial boil and topping off the rest of the water in the fermenter. My question is, if you are doing a full volume boil and not adding any top off water, would it still be beneficial to add half of the extract at the end of the boil? Or is this method of adding the rest of the extract at the end only applicable to partial boils? Thank you for any further insight on this. Cheers.
When to add extract question
- Thread starter drovick
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flars
Well-Known Member
The late extract addition technique is applicable to full boils also. It just means you are cooking the extract less to end up with a lighter colored beer. Heating sugars darkens them. The Maillard Reaction.
Some darker beers where you may want a more intense flavor profile would not benefit from late extract addition.
Some darker beers where you may want a more intense flavor profile would not benefit from late extract addition.
Color is the main thing. For the lightest possible color, you only need to boil the extract for 15 minutes, or maybe even just 10 minutes. If you're making an amber or dark beer, then it doesn't matter so much when you add the extract. Same is true for full volume boils or concentrated with top-up -- if you want light color, save most of the extract for the end of the boil. Don't forget to turn off the heat to prevent scorching on the bottom -- I made that ugly mistake once, and once was enough!
I'm also new to brewing having cooked up about a dozen commercial extract kits to date. Early on I followed the kit instructions to the letter but often ended up with beer that was disappointingly too dark colored. Somewhere along the way I learned that boiling only a portion of the extract can prevent this. I now add only 1/3 of the extract to the full boil and add the rest at around fifteen minutes left to boil. This has resulted in lighter colored beer.
I like the way you described having 10 batches under your belt
I like the way you described having 10 batches under your belt
Weezy
Well-Known Member
You can do hop additions in just boiling water and you can add all of the extract at flameout. The hops will isomerize in the plain water. The extract comes pre-cooked and the water will remain plenty hot enough to sanitize the extract. This is unconventional but perfectly fine and very simple.
As an example,I have a paper somewhere of a study for creating prehopped concentrate in water solution by boiling in water alone. I bring it up cuz I usually get someone pushing back on that part.
I do a lazy IPA every three months because I need clean wort to feed my bug culture. I boil a gallon of water, shut off the heat, mix in one can of Alexander's pale lme, pull off a cup of unhopped wort for the bugs, then I add quarter pound of sugar and a bunch of flameout hops to the original pot, let it steep for 20 minutes, then add 2 gallons cold water.
As an example,I have a paper somewhere of a study for creating prehopped concentrate in water solution by boiling in water alone. I bring it up cuz I usually get someone pushing back on that part.
I do a lazy IPA every three months because I need clean wort to feed my bug culture. I boil a gallon of water, shut off the heat, mix in one can of Alexander's pale lme, pull off a cup of unhopped wort for the bugs, then I add quarter pound of sugar and a bunch of flameout hops to the original pot, let it steep for 20 minutes, then add 2 gallons cold water.
This is true; however, the powers that be say that boiling hops in plain water pulls out tannins due to the very high pH. Adding a little of the extract before the boil lowers the pH into the 5s and thus inhibits tannin extraction (goal is pH<5.8). What do tannins do to the beer? Tannins are perceived as a very dry, cottonmouth feeling.
That being said, I have never made a hop tea in plain water, so I'm just saying this based on experiments that many others have run.
Weezy
Well-Known Member
I haven't had the problem of tannin production from hops in the higher pH condition, but I've never done a highly hopped beer that way. Modest hops didn't yield a noticable result. I've only done two true teas. Most are flameout additions after extract was also added.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I certainly respect that.
