Extended Boil

[geoffi]

So, yesterday I was up at 5am. At 10:30 am I swam from Bondi Beach to Bronte. Then I had to look after three kids until 4pm, when I drove from Bexley to Jamberoo.

So I was pretty tired. But I decided I needed a Xmas brew, and time was running out. So brewing it was.

At 10:20pm, my 38 litre batch of Hefeweizen had about 10 minutes left on the boil. I had the cubes ready to go. I went inside and sat down for a few minutes...

I was awoken by fighting cats. Normally I would be pretty pissed off by this. Then I looked at the time. 2am. I raced out onto the veranda to find about 1/3 of my brew had evaporated. (Luckily I'd had it on a fairly low boil.)

I topped up the kettle with some more water, brought it back to the boil and gave it another 10 minutes before draining into cubes.

Today I will get one of these going with WB-06. I am very curious to find out what this will be like after a 4 1/2 hour boil. I'm expecting something rather different from the light, refreshing brew I had intended.

Anyway, in future, late-night brewing sessions will involve another piece of equipment...an alarm.

 

[///]

A low boil on the flame thrower of yours Geoffi would constitute a vigorous boil for most.

Wonder how this Summer Barley Wine will turn out....

Scotty

 

[newguy]

It's definitely going to be darker than you intended and I'd hazard a guess that it may have some caramelisation. Your beer may not turn out as bitter as you planned; I recently read the Barley Wine classic beer style series book and it states that if hops are boiled for longer than about 90-120 minutes that the bitterness can actually decrease.

My longest boil was 3 hours for a barleywine, but I was shooting for a heavy, caramelised, syrupy wort.

 

[geoffi]

I bittered on the high side for style, so it might just bring it back to the middle. I'm certainly expecting caramelisation. I considered just cubing and fermenting the reduced volume (I guess it might have made a Weizenbock or something similar), but decided in a semi-awake state to dilute it back towards the target amount.

I had actually been considering experimenting with longer boil times...but this is ridiculous.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

At 10:30 am I swam from Bondi Beach to Bronte.

Probably quicker than catching the bus.

topped up the kettle with some more water, brought it back to the boil and gave it another 10 minutes before draining into cubes

.


Sounds like a potential IBU case swap contender !

 

[raven19]

Thats a fair hit of gas lost too (assuming you have a gas burner).

I am interested to hear how it turns out... did you have a little taste of the wort yet?

 

[geoffi]

Thats a fair hit of gas lost too (assuming you have a gas burner).

I am interested to hear how it turns out... did you have a little taste of the wort yet?

Yes, the bottle is a bit on the light side, alas.

I did taste the wort. It was pretty good, I'd have to say, richly sweet and not overly bitter, so that does leave some reason for hope. I think I can safely assume any hop aroma would have been well and truly driven off (although I wasn't after that anyway).

 

[Fatgodzilla]

Yes, the bottle is a bit on the light side, alas.

I did taste the wort. It was pretty good, I'd have to say, richly sweet and not overly bitter, so that does leave some reason for hope. I think I can safely assume any hop aroma would have been well and truly driven off (although I wasn't after that anyway).

Any chance you took a gravity reading 1. Pre Boil 2. Post Boil 3. After topping off cube ?

 

[apd]

I've done a similar thing baking a loaf of bread. I did have an alarm set but slept right through. Woke up to the aroma of charred bread at 3am. Then I heard of someone leaving the country for a month with a pizza in the oven on low . Amazingly they didn't come back to a pile of smoking rubble.

Count yourself lucky and who knows, you might have brewed to best beer you'll ever brew.

Andrew

 

[geoffi]

Any chance you took a gravity reading 1. Pre Boil 2. Post Boil 3. After topping off cube ?

I didn't have my hydrometer on hand. I rarely use it during the process, and normally just take a reading when the wort goes into the fermenter. I'm not sure if that means I have such a tight system that I don't need to measure, or if I'm just really slack. Objectively, the latter no doubt.

I'm going to pitch this one tonight, so I'll take a gravity reading then. That will be the post-dilution reading. I added ~9 litres of water to the kettle after my rude awakening, so I guess I can work backwards to figure out where the gravity was after the long boil.

 

[geoffi]

Just took a reading. 1.048, pretty much spot on my predicted OG. So working backwards I'd say the pre-dilution gravity would have been around 1.065.

Definitely darker than normal, and maybe a bit of a caramel taste. We'll see what those yeasties can make of it.

 

[geoffi]

This has been bubbling away at 18-20c for a few days now. Down to 1.012, and still has some action, so I think it'll drop another two or three points. Looks about the same colour as a Maisel's or a Schneider Weisse. Tasting...not at all bad. That extra caramel flavour is there, but I think once it has carbed up it should be quite drinkable. I think I'll bottle on Sunday or Monday so I can serve it to the Xmas punters.

Not a procedure I'm planning to repeat, but I don't think this batch is a dead loss by any means.

 

[geoffi]

Now the results...To me this is a bit odd, a bit caramelly and some other odd flavours in there, but I offered it to the Xmas throng, and the thumbs were decidedly up. Several commented on how superior it was to the commercial brew that was also on offer (Cascade Light...well, duh!) In fact I have requests for take-home packs, so that 21 litres now sitting in the CC fridge will be going to loving homes. I'll polish off the rest, but when I try this again it'll be with a more 'traditional' boil time. No need to repeat this 'experiment'.