Hops And Malt

[sponge]

Hey

Sorry if this has already been covered, but I've had a search for the last 10min and can't find the answer. I thought I wrote it down in my notes somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

On friday I'll attempt my first extract & grain recipe, and just have a quick question. I thought i read somewhere that after steeping the grains and boiling the liquid, you HAVE to add your malt extract (I'll be using 3kg for my recipe) to the boiling runnings before adding your hops.

Is this true? Do you have to add all the LME before adding the hops, or do you boil the hops with only the steeping liquid and add the LME at flameout?


Cheers, Sponge

 

[Kleiny]

You do need to have some malt at boil to get the best result from your hops
you just cant boil hops in water and hope to get a good flavour

The LME has already been boiled so as long as your boil has the sweet wort from your steeped grains you should
get reasonable attenuation and stability from your hops

The LME can be added at flame out


good luck

 

[Muggus]

As a general rule of thumb, the more of the total volume of your beer you boil up with the hops, the more effective your hop presence (bitterness/flavour/aroma etc) will be.
Of course that all depends on how big a pot/boiler you have to do your hop boil.
You want to at least have all of the strained liquid you've steeped your grains in, and any liquid you've used to sparge/wash the excess grains with.
Also helps, if you add as much of the fermentables before you get the boil happening. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with adding some extra malt after, so long as its stirred in and combined with the mixture.

 

[sponge]

Thanks for the replys. So it would be possible to only add say 1 or 2 of the tins of LME before adding the hops, and then add the final 1 or 2 tins at the end (assuming the tins are 1kg each)?

 

[Muggus]

Thanks for the replys. So it would be possible to only add say 1 or 2 of the tins of LME before adding the hops, and then add the final 1 or 2 tins at the end (assuming the tins are 1kg each)?

Yeah that sounds pretty good to me. Be sure you use enough water to dissolve the contents of all of the malt evenly.
Do you have a decent sized pot/boiler to do your hops in?

 

[sponge]

the largest pot i have is about 8.2L. Will this be big enough?

 

[sah]

Hop utilisation decreases in terms of bittering effectiveness (isomerisation of alpha-acids) as the gravity of the liquor increases.

The higher the gravity, the more hops you'll have to use, or the longer the boil to achieve the same level of bitterness.

I haven't read how this affects the other hop oils that provide the flavour and aroma.

Refs:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-5.html
http://www.realbeer.com/hops/FAQ.html

regards,
Scott

 

[Canumbler]

Just a problem that I've run into before that I thought I'd give you a heads up on, if your malt extract is dry it's MUCH freakin easier to add it and dissolve it into the water between the steep and the boil than it is after the boil.

This is because at that time you can apply heat and stir without too much worry, but if you apply heat after the boil you're going to lose some hop aroma.

Bloody dry extract, drives me crazy how it clumps up.