Boiling Hops With Sugars

[Beerbuoy]

I am going to try boiling my Sugars, malt and kit to disolve all the gunk before making up my wort. That way I can cool it and try and get the pitching temp down a bit.

Two questions

Can I boil my finishing hops in with it at the same time??

Does boiling the wort ingredients help with sanitation??

Cheers in advance

Ian

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

No, sugar is not a good thing to boil hopps in..

You would be much better to use liquid or dry malt..

At has a lot to do with the various oils and flavours..

 

[Pollux]

Boil your malt at a rate of 1kg/1L of water (this is for dry extract) and use that for your hop additions, which I presume would be only flavour/aroma as the kit would add some bitterness...

Then at flameout you can stir the kit and any additional sugars in to help with dissolving lumps... Then cool to at least 30 degrees and use the balance of volume required to help cool it further (I personally cool 10L to 30deg then top with 3L worth of ice and another 10L of tap water, normally hit 20deg by the time I pitch)


In terms of sanitation, if you are still filling the fermenter with plain tap water, then in reality the boiling of the malt extract will have near to zero overall effect...

 

[0M39A]

Boil your malt at a rate of 1kg/1L of water (this is for dry extract) and use that for your hop additions, which I presume would be only flavour/aroma as the kit would add some bitterness...

that would be a pretty horrible thick sticky mess imo...

you would also get rather average efficiency out of the hops. the best gravity for extraction is around 1040. better off with 1kg for 10 litres of water.

 

[Pollux]

Oh Crap, my bad, I meant 1kg per 10L.......


Lesson learnt, thou shall not attempt to type, drink and tell off daughter at the same time........

 

[Bribie G]

As the malt extract has been already boiled and whirlpooled to remove hot break and, in the case of the LDME has been further nuked in the spray drying process I see no benefit in boiling malt extract, other than bringing it up to a quick boil to sanitize in case Ross has sneezed while packing it.

I often boiled a smallish portion with the hops to help extraction but in the occasional partials I make nowadays, no need to do that either as I am boiling the sweet wort from the partial mash.

Anyone who is going to sit and watch a heap of malt extract boiling away for an hour in an unnecessarly big pot for no real benefit might be advised to go AG, spend an hour mashing and do the boil where it WILL be of real benefit.

My 2c.

 

[Rodolphe01]

If you simply want to kill the heat, use ice.

After straining, I boil my steeped grains, then add add malt/dex/hops/whatevers. Add goo and bring to boil just to sanitise. Final volume of boil ends up being ~6 litres. I use a 4kg bag of ice to bring the temp down, only costs about $3 from woolies. Chuck the ice in the fermenter then pour in the hot wort and aerate like a ******* and the ice melts in about 30 seconds, top up with tap water and final temp is about 15 degrees.

I have spare freezer room and now have several 1.5 litre containers I filled with boiled water frozen, saves me going to the shops. I haven't used them yet so I'm not quite sure how big blocks ice will go melting quickly, presumably a lot longer than ice cubes

 

[Bribie G]

Whilst three dollars for the ice could buy a few hops, nonetheless I had to buy a bag of ice yesterday for something completely different, got mine from Liquorland and noted that it said "ultra pure drinking ice" and will use a bag in my next partial brew, next week. Good method and gets the brew to pitching temperature real quick. Especially in QLD at the moment any method of cooling is a blessing.

 

[flattop]

I like the idea of using "drinking ice" but i wonder how pure it is???
My mate uses tank water that is well filtered and my guess his water is probably better than Melbourne water which has fluoride etc etc
Then you can always use PET water bottles, freeze them and slit them open when you want to cool the brew. They come in about $1-$1.50 for 2 liters i think.

 

[Rodolphe01]

Drinking ice is filtered tap water... So probably has less junk than regular tap water. I use tap water for my brews, so the drinking ice made with the same water supply is a non-issue.

I haven't had an infection yet using the ice, nor has my Sensei who suggested I use it.

 

[flattop]

I was thinking more of the Service station stuff.....

 

[Bribie G]

I was thinking more of the Service station stuff.....

Hm, Fred and Dad's ice company might not be the best quality. I had a mate in Bundaberg years ago who owned a small iceworks and his couple of labourers would be sloshing around in gum boots up to their ankles in ice cubes shovelling away... but in those days nobody was interested in actually sucking the stuff, it was more for keeping your stubbies and mullet gut cold on the fishing trip.

I got my bag from Liquorland in the dedicated cabinet next to the alcopops and it was definitely being promoted as edible, so I guess I would trust that brand.