Boiling The Extract ?

[agro]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the brewing hobby..

I have read a lot of hints and tips for beginners, from 'Homebrewing for Dummies' through to http://www.howtobrew.com/. A lot of these resources say to boil the malt extract from kits, although the kit's make no mention of boiling the malt.

As an example my next brew will be the first time I'm combining a kit, hops and
chocolate grain. The recipe was recommended by the brew shop near work.

The recipe:

http://conaghan.info/Brew%20Log.htm#%5B%5B...r%20Stout%5D%5D

The question is should I boil the extract and the malt and cooling it prior to pitching the yeast, or does it not matter ?

Is this a precautionary measure or recommended ?

I will be putting this brew down to ferment in 1-2 weeks when the current batch of cider is ready to be bottled.

Cheers
J.

 

[Screwtop]

Have done both J. and can't say I have noticed any diff. Hopefully some of the more experienced will add to the thread. Are you planning on using a yeast which can handle your higher SG?

 

[agro]

To be honest I hadn't thought about using a different yeast - I was just going to pitch the 'Morgans Ale Yeast' that came with the kit. I guess that's the subject for another thread - any recommendations on the yeast ?

Cheers
Jason.

 

[Screwtop]

To be honest I hadn't thought about using a different yeast - I was just going to pitch the 'Morgans Ale Yeast' that came with the kit. I guess that's the subject for another thread - any recommendations on the yeast ?

Cheers
Jason.

[post="96767"][/post]​

Sorry to go off topic but in reply to your question.
From my limited experience the two most important factors in home brewing are yeast and fermentation temp. The results from using a good liquid yeast of a suitable strain for the style and fermenting at the correct temp are amazing. That home brew taste is simply not there and the beers are so much better than the commercial crap. Have a look at This is good advice you could try a Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast. Do a search of the site there should be plenty of thread info to help you.

 

[hupnupnee]

Hi Aggro, I have to agree with screw top. Since using better quality yeast my brew quality has increased markedly. About boiling, I'm not convinced yet that it makes a great difference except if you want to hop it. Boiling your own hops in the wort makes an astonishing difference and certainly makes boiling worth while. If you are going to boil your extracts kits you will need to add some hops for aroma as the boiling will drive the nice smelly tasty stuff off, but the bitterness will remain.

T

 

[Wortgames]

If you are adding your own hops, then something really should get boiled. You can either boil the whole lot (which should give you a better result, providing you can do a full hour and then cool it as well) or you can brew up a small wort 'tea' on the stove with your hops and some extract, and then add that to your fermenter. This is much easier and it gives you some experience at the process and awesome smells of AG brewing

You could steep your grains first, then use that liquid with some of the extract and your hops.

 

[sosman]

I seem to recall there are a number of threads on brewboard.com where people advocate boiling the whole lot, adding the extract late (so as not to upset the hop profile too much).

I think the idea was to boil off chlorine and achieve some hot break.

Of course if you start doing this kind of thing then you lose the convenience of kits.

 

[agro]

I'm *very* new to the HB thing - so I'm going to keep it simple and work on one problem at a time. From what I have read on the forum it's fairly obvious that temperature is the first big hurdle I have to deal with.

I'll stick to the standard yeast in this run, although I will pick up a tube of Irish Ale Yeast WLP004 available at the HB store near work for the next batch (I will be trialling several runs on this base recipe). As I understand it this is very similar to the Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast recommended by Screwtop.

The recipe and plan of attack for this first time attempt with the specialty grains and hops can be found Here.

To put it simply...

The chocolate grain and hops will be steeped, forming the boiling water for the mix. The hops bag wil be added to the fermenter after steeping. I won't boil the malt extract as this seems to have been done 'in can' and I haven't encountered problems previously.

Thanks for all the advice

Cheers.

 

[Jazzafish]

When I was brewing kits and adding steeped grain and hops, I found boiling the batch made a big difference. I could always taste a syrup type flavour from the can. Boiling the lot fixed this for me.

If you are going to the effort to do this, get a better yeast. The difference is amazing. It isn't much more work. If you want to keep dry yeast for familiarity, get the SAFale yeast.

I found it more than worth the effort!

Cheers,
Jarrad

 

[agro]

Ok - I'll pick up the liquid yeast from the HSB near work this week. A cold pack and an ice block should be enough to see it through the day and the train trip home.

Is it just me or is there a distinct lack of brew shops in Sydney?

 

[Stuster]

Try Gerard at Northern Districts Brewing. Delivers to the door, good prices, lots of wise advice, etc, etc.

No affiliation, just a happy customer.

PS Gerard, any chance of some freebies for the sales pitch. :lol:

 

[pint of lager]

For your first few brews, concentrate on sanitation, ferment temperature control and keep buying good ingedients from your HBS. Don't worry about boiling your malt, stick to the KISS method.

As your brewing skills improve, look towards different yeasts, steeping specialty grain, racking, bulk priming and maybe some partial mashing.

A few years ago, was talking with a beer judge about boiling kits. He said that for a while, the kit beers were ending up with a funny flavour which he had put down to many brewers at the time boiling kits. He felt that the isohops extract did not take kindly to being boiled.

Rather than trying to boil kits, keep their methods as easy as possible, they really lend themselves to being quick and simple to put down. Instead, when the urge to boil hits, apply this to extract brewing where you control the type and quantity of hops added and have a greater control on the brewing process.

As you have probably read, when you boil malt extract, hot and cold break is generated, and the removal of this from the ferment makes brews cleaner and better flavoured.

Keep doing your research and online reading. Be aware that there are many many good ideas and well intentioned advice out there and it is easy for newer brewers to be overwhelmed by the information flood and miss what is the most important things to concentrate on. Sanitation, fermment temperature control and ingredients. Then work from there.

 

[Screwtop]

Ok - I'll pick up the liquid yeast from the HSB near work this week. A cold pack and an ice block should be enough to see it through the day and the train trip home.

Is it just me or is there a distinct lack of brew shops in Sydney?

[post="96938"][/post]​

I am not long home from travelling OZ for 18 months. Found very few HBS's who could even tell me anything about AG brewing. Few carry liquid yeast!
Since you have decided to go liquid, check threads here on yeast starters. To save you some hard earned, when you get you little yeast family home grow them to a 4L starter. Pitch a goodly 2L starter into your wort (reduce batch volume by 2L to allow for starter) then divide up the remainder into 5x400ml subs. Use sanitised 600ml PET water or drink bottles and store in the fridge. For your next 5 brews simply take a starter from the fridge and step it up to 2L. Great yeast, large pitching colonies and great value. When stepping starters shake often to aerate as much as possible (yeast needs oxygen to multiply, not for alcohol production) in order for the yeast to maximise colony numbers.

 

[PistolPatch]

This has been a handy post for me. As a beginner I like the advice of just trying new things gradually. Wortgames suggested boiling up a hop tea with a bit of wort which sounds like a great idea.

Does Wortgames or anyone else have more detailed suggestions on what volumes to use? (I imagine times would be as normal ie 60mins).

And, here's probably a really stupid question but before trying a tea with wort, could you just do one using water only as a stepping stone to the above. If so what volumes and times?

Hoppy beers make me happy.

 

[Guran]

question related to the original topic: having received a copy of "Beer Captured" for xmas, am about to leave kit brewing behind and get into full extract/60min boils. "Beer Captured" recipes always use dry malt extract, not liquid malt.

Questions: Is dry preferable to liquid, and if not, how would I modify the recipes to use (unhopped) liquid malt?

Any assitance appreciated!

- Guran

 

[Ross]

question related to the original topic: having received a copy of "Beer Captured" for xmas, am about to leave kit brewing behind and get into full extract/60min boils. "Beer Captured" recipes always use dry malt extract, not liquid malt.

Questions: Is dry preferable to liquid, and if not, how would I modify the recipes to use (unhopped) liquid malt?

Any assitance appreciated!

- Guran

[post="99976"][/post]​

Guran,

DME is easier to measure small amounts accurately - if your preference is liquid malt, just add 20% more... When I did extract brewing, I tended to use LME for the bulk & dme for the finer tuning - Never really tasted one against the other though, so will leave to others on whether they think there's a difference in taste...

Not sure why I used LME, other than it was what the brewshop sold me - maybe cheaper?

cheers Ross

 

[sosman]

question related to the original topic: having received a copy of "Beer Captured" for xmas, am about to leave kit brewing behind and get into full extract/60min boils. "Beer Captured" recipes always use dry malt extract, not liquid malt.

Questions: Is dry preferable to liquid, and if not, how would I modify the recipes to use (unhopped) liquid malt?

Any assitance appreciated!

[post="99976"][/post]​

I personally prefer dry because it is a little easier to handle and since it has no moisture content I think it keeps better.

Liquid malt extract has only about 80% of the potential of DME so you need to use about 20% more.

You can plug your recipes into software like Brewsta or promash and it will tell you that kind of thing.

 

[MHB]

Most of the liquid malt extracts quot 80-82% solids WW, so I just discount the weight of LME by 20%.

 

[Guran]

Thanks guys, that's excellent. I was trying to think whether there might be a reasonable, quality shortcut involving working out how much liquid to substitute for dry, and then working out what hopped extract might use the right hops ... But I think that might be a retrograde step and besides, it's spelt out for me using dry, so why not?

Again, thanks for the guidance. If anything decent comes out of it I'll let you know!

- Guran