Long Boil... Darker beer?

[blink471]

Just a quick question I have wondered and still cant find a definitive answer.

Does a longer boil of wort... say 90mins or more, darken the malt?

Most recipes call for a 60 min on average... but a longer boil will supposedly drive off DMS in lighter malts such as Pilsner.

So I just wonder can you over do it with the boil?

Hope someone has the answer.

Regards.

 

[slcmorro]

A longer boil time promotes more maillard reaction activity in the wort, so yes. I'd say the longer you boil it, the darker it can become.

 

[blink471]

A longer boil time promotes more maillard reaction activity in the wort, so yes. I'd say the longer you boil it, the darker it can become.

So if you were brewing a lager or german pilsner you would be 60 or less...?

 

[MastersBrewery]

A longer boil time promotes more maillard reaction activity in the wort, so yes. I'd say the longer you boil it, the darker it can become.

Maillard reactions can be avoided with a steam powered kettle mostly :angry2:

So if you were brewing a lager or german pilsner you would be 60 or less...?

Most advise a 90min boil for Pilsners and beers with high pils bill your colour won't be overly adversely affected.

 

[blink471]

Most advise a 90min boil for Pilsners and beers with high pils bill your colour won't be overly adversely affected.

I was planning a 90... but was wondering if I can over do it... And I thought it might caramilize it somehow...

I want a light colour.. and dont mind the extra time.

 

[dr K]

a longer boil will darken the worts by two paths.caramelization and dilution. now caramelisation is going to take a long time and a high degree of dilution the maillard raction is more noticeable in malt production and decoction than a simple boil ..it is good practice to boil pils for900

 

[MastersBrewery]

So long as your not boiling so hard it's trying to jump out of the pot you should be fine, and here's the thing; the boil is not so much about temperature (that's what the maillard reactions and carramelising are about) for brewing the boil is about the evaporation of undesirables and motion within the kettle.

At altitude a boil will take place at lower temp, there are breweries that boil at 90c because of their altitude. Nice easy rolling boil is all that is needed.

 

[blink471]

An interesting note... Just added a recipe I put together into Beersmith.. Using a pilsner malt and a small percentage of carapils.

And I realise Beersmith doesn't know everything... but it didn't change in its colour estimation when changing from 60 to 90 min boil.

So its confusing.

 

[yankinoz]

Higher gravity gives the Maillard reactions more to work with and slightly raises boil temps.

One trick if the boil time is long and the OG is high, either because you're doing a partial boil or you're brewing a strong, light-coloured beer, is to do a mostly mash and add DME near the end of the boil. I've done this using Briess pilsner or wheat dme.

Second about altitude. Colorado (US) brewers swear by it. Move to Falls Creek?

 

[blink471]

Move to Falls Creek?

Is there surf there?

 

[MHB]

If you look at a COA from a good maltster it will often give a wort colour and a boiled wort colour (here is an old one that I have handy View attachment WM158Mel_Pilsner_Malt.pdf).
The test is to boil for two hours in a constant boil apparatus (flask with condenser fitted so steam condenses falls back into the wort).
You can see that the colour goes from 3.5 to 5.5 in 120 minutes, according to what I have read the colour development is fairly linear so at 60 minutes you would expect the wort to be around 4.5 EBC.

Nearly all the colour development if from Milliard Reactions (protein and sugar joining up) and to a (much) lesser extent from caramelisation of sugars and oxidisation of tannins.
High heat surfaces from direct fired kettles and hot element surfaces will encourage colour development, as will high wort pH and excess O2 pickup.

A 1EBC darkening isn't much (nor is 2) and my default boil is 90 minutes for a whole bunch of reasons, if the rest of your parameters are close to the money (surface heat, pH, O2..) I doubt you will see much of a difference.
Mark

 

[yankinoz]

On pH and Maillard reactions, here's a link: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/How_pH_affects_brewing#Maillard_reactions

 

[blink471]

On pH and Maillard reactions, here's a link: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/How_pH_affects_brewing#Maillard_reactions

Cheers.. researching that now..

 

[Danscraftbeer]

An interesting note... Just added a recipe I put together into Beersmith.. Using a pilsner malt and a small percentage of carapils.

And I realise Beersmith doesn't know everything... but it didn't change in its colour estimation when changing from 60 to 90 min boil.

So its confusing.

I'm on this at the moment. I have done experimental brews up to 3 hours. It gets only marginally darker when considering the final yield.
I think beersmith does add this to the calculations. Its only marginal. Id love to see some colour spectrum analysis but I think its,,,,,,,,,,marginal.

Edit: Can you get a colour meter? For the home brewer?

 

[blink471]

I'm on this at the moment. I have done experimental brews up to 3 hours. It gets only marginally darker when considering the final yield.
I think beersmith does add this to the calculations. Its only marginal. Id love to see some colour spectrum analysis but I think its,,,,,,,,,,marginal.

Edit: Can you get a colour meter? For the home brewer?

Yeah its interesting... I was just considering that boiling all that goodness was changing properties that I didn't want too... This is all so I can brew a Bohemian style beer... but didn't want to darken it too much.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I think Its all good. The colour may just get a better depth and better clarity I find. No negative affects at all with longer boils. Positive affects as far as I know.

edit: silly spell check......

 

[MHB]

Yeah its interesting... I was just considering that boiling all that goodness was changing properties that I didn't want too... This is all so I can brew a Bohemian style beer... but didn't want to darken it too much.

Keep the pH low <5.3pH, avoid O2 uptake, add some more Ca to the kettle (say 100ppm), acidify sparge water and don't over sparge which increases tannins.
Apart from the increased colour (minimal under good conditions) a longer boil will reduce haze forming proteins and tannins by complexing them forming break matter (which reduces colour) so good break separation is important. Longer boils reduce DMS, but you still only need 10% evaporation over the boil so you might be able to throttle the fire down a bit (that reduces colour to), SMM > DMS > Ejection is more time than temperature dependant.
Some yeasts reduce colour during the ferment more than do others, yeast with lower end pH and high reducing power will give a paler beer (34/70 is a good one) but might not be the first choice for a Bohemian Lager.

And you thought you were asking a nice simple question... Ha-ha brewing questions are mostly complicated questions.
Mate, good malt, good basic brewing processes, for Lager lots of healthy yeast, keep it clean and simple you will make a great beer, then fine tune as you find things about the beer you want to improve.
Mark

 

[Blind Dog]

The simple answer (IMO) is no, or at least not noticeably in a normal sized batch. Next time you brew a light coloured beer, take and keep a sample pre-boil then compare it to a sample post boil. Done it a few times (i.e. forgotten to tip the pre- boil SG sample back into the pot), and not noticed a difference. A hard boil to reduce a portion of unhopped wort to a syrup, is a whole different story, as that can have some fairly noticeable impact on final colour.

 

[blink471]

Some great info from you guys... and it's given me more thoughts on the brewing process.

Im also trying to pay better attention to the mashing, especially temperature and time. But like MHB said.. clean and simple is the way to go.

 

[MHB]

I'm on this at the moment. I have done experimental brews up to 3 hours. It gets only marginally darker when considering the final yield.
I think beersmith does add this to the calculations. Its only marginal. Id love to see some colour spectrum analysis but I think its,,,,,,,,,,marginal.

Edit: Can you get a colour meter? For the home brewer?

Dans in short NO, without spending fairly serious $'s on a spectrometer the only other options would be lucky to be +/- 5EBC.
If you are interested in knowing way too much about colour visit http://www.beercolor.com/ its a fun website as well as being interesting.
There are even instructions for building your own single frequency spectrometer http://www.beercolor.com/built_your_own_430nm_portable_sp.htm

Going to give you fair warning, there is a very limited benefit (I wasted a measurable percentage of my life trying to make sense of beer colour).
Have another look at the Weyermann COA I posted above, the colour is for an 8:1 L:G mash at a pH of 5.8 conducted in distilled water and at 100% efficiency (by definition).
How do we translate that into a brewery wort? what is the effect on colour of falling extract efficiency, does 80% efficiency extract 80% of the colour? we know pH has a big effect on colour, but how much? What do water salts do to colour?
There is a PhD thesis or two in there for anyone who is so inclined (I would rather drink beer) the number of variables make "accurate" colour prediction impossible, the equations we have are a fairly blunt instrument and at best put us in the ball park.
Mark