To Boil, Or Not To Boil?

[thedragon]

Fellow brewers,

I'm new to the brewing game and am building experience with K&K brews. I now have 13 brews under the belt with 7 batches consumed and the remainder still secondary fermenting. All are drinkable but I am still learning with each batch.

I've been listening to a number of american podcasts on brewing, and in all the presenters talk about "the boil", which I understand to mean boiling the kit, fermentables and about 15 liters of water prior to adding both the the fermenter. With the exception of throwing away the yeast packet and replacing it with something decent from my LHBS, i've simply followed the instructions on the Coopers kits I've brought and haven't boiled my brews like the guys in the podcasts. My brews have all turned out fine. Not perfect, but enjoyable and happily consumed by my mates.

Anyway, my question is this.... As a K&K brewer, should I boil my wort for the hour recommended by the podcasters, or is it ok to just follow the instructions on the Coopers kit and mix the wort and sugar with 23 liters of 26 degree water directly in the fermenter prior to adding yest and letting it go?

I know that I really should be getting more adventurous and adding hops etc, however I want to improve with basic kits first.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Daniel

 

[raven19]

Absolutely no need to boil the kit, just follow the instructions.

If you are doing partials, adding hops, etc., then yes boil the runnings from the spec malts - but in a K&K brew, no point to boil it.

Proper sanitation techniques will hold you in good stead as per your results so far, so keep doing what you are doing!

 

[Hatchy]

I'll agree with Raven except to say that you'll be pretty limited with what you can do with kits. Boiling some hops or just dry hopping gives you a lot more options with what you can do with the kits. Nice work on buying some proper yeast too.

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

Done it before! Not necessary! Boiling the kit only strips the kit from all hop flavouring, Just leaving the bittering.

 

[Boondy]

From my limited experience, I reckon 13 K&K's is a lot, and you ought to consider jumping into the deep(ish) end, so to speak, and giving extract a crack.
It actually doesn't take a lot of extra effort to go to extract brewing, and in my limited experience, the results have been more rewarding.
I have only done a handful of kit brews, the rest (about 10 years worth, give or take the odd sabbatical) have been extract.
The biggest improvement I noticed in my brewing was making that change - from kits to extract. Fresh ingredients, quality hops and quality yeast.

There are a heap of extract recipes available, and lots of them are really good. Plenty of people on this site are willing to lend their experiences to help you along the way.
With a little experience, you get to design your own brew, and make it sort of from scratch. Ok, it's not AG, but ...you still get bragging rights for designing your own brew, and it's a lot less effort!
It also gives you a platform for stepping up to AG.

So saying however, there is nothing wrong with K&K brewing, and if you are getting the results you want, all power to you.

 

[beerdrinkingbob]

A mate boils his kits and has great results, don't get me wrong been trying to drag him to the dark side (AG BIAB)

 

[DU99]

read here also
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry720978

 

[BjornJ]

Thedragon,
that's a good question,

the reason the advice here is that you should not boil the kit beers is that they are already boiled for you.

As you know, the concept is;
grains are added to warm water, this extracts malt sugars.
This resulting sweet wort is boiled and hops are added, making the beer bitter, more flavor hops are added, etc.
This wort is cooled before pitching yeast.

The kit beers follow the exact same procedure, except that between the boil and the pitching yeast steps, they condensate the wort.
So the syrup in the kit beer cans is just the wort with hops already boiled, but without most of the water.

So no need to boil the kits, you just need to add the water that was removed to get it to it's current volume.
Then add some more sugars/malt extract to get it back up to a high enough OG for your liking.

As someone was saying, boiling it again will not help and probably hurt.
As the hop oils added late in the original boil for aroma may evaporate if boiled again.


thanks
Bjorn

 

[Josh]

Just to add to what Bjorn said. And I agree with it..

The kits they are talking about in USA are extract kits which haven't been boiled with hops, or had bittering added to the extract already. So if you were buying an extract kit from More Beer, you would actually have to boil some wort to get your bitterness from the hops.

Kit & Kilo on the other hand has no need for this as it's already done for you.

 

[stuchambers]

TheDragon,
I think you should take the next step and try an extract brew.
Apart from a few attempts during uni to make the cheapest most alcoholic beer i could,this time around I only made one kit beer before moving to extract.
It is hardly any extra effort and the rewards are sure worth it, then there is the added bonus of spending hours dreaming up your recipes.
If you haven't already I suggest you download Ianh's spreadsheet it is a wonderful tool that helps you develop and keep track of your brewing.
Just my 2c
Cheers Stu

 

[TheYank]

You should check this show out:
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/698

I believe that the most important thing to concentrate on is proper fermentation. Buy a temperture controller and get a 2nd hand fridge or chest freezer. I'd also work on making a good yeast starter and make sure your pitching rate is correct. Healthy yeast and controlled fermentation should enable you to make very good beer from a kit.

If you don't control the temperature, pitch healthy yeast and maintain sanatation the beer will not improve even if it is all grain.

 

[Yowster]

Anyway, my question is this.... As a K&K brewer, should I boil my wort for the hour recommended by the podcasters, or is it ok to just follow the instructions on the Coopers kit and mix the wort and sugar with 23 liters of 26 degree water directly in the fermenter prior to adding yest and letting it go?

Daniel

As you are using a better yeast than the kit yeast, I would really look at getting the temperature of your worts down.
The best improvement I have made from my 15 odd brews was to start fermenting at 18 degrees. I keep the brew at this level for 7 days and then let it come up to between 20 and 22 degrees for a few days before bottling.

 

[thedragon]

Gents,

Thank you all for your comments and feedback regarding kits v extract brewing - this has come at a perfect time for me. Along with the free time one gets at this time of year, my Christmas gift to myself will be the ingredients required for an extract brew. Like many others that have commented here, for me drinking the beer is only half the fun. thinking about what to make and the activity of putting the brew down is a big part of it. it sounds as if taking the next step to extract brewing (and maybe AGB in another year) is well worth it and will enhance the experience.

Thanks all for your avice. AHB... a great community.

Daniel

 

[thedragon]

As you are using a better yeast than the kit yeast, I would really look at getting the temperature of your worts down.
The best improvement I have made from my 15 odd brews was to start fermenting at 18 degrees. I keep the brew at this level for 7 days and then let it come up to between 20 and 22 degrees for a few days before bottling.

Yowie, theYank, I couldn't agree more. My ability to control temp is limited to keeping the fermenter indoors in the dark at 18 - 22 deg, but a mate who uses a temp controlled fridge at under 18 deg achieves much better results using the same inputs. Sounds like i shouls spend the money and buy an old fridge and not worry about the 50 bucks per year it'll cost to run it

Thanks for your advice

D