To boil or not to boil?

[alextacy]

Hi there, another newbie question. Apologies if this is covered elsewhere.

Reading Palmercs book & site there is a strong recommendation to boil the wort for an hour to get a "much better beer". The advice is to ignore the instructions on the extract kits.
Fair enough.

But then I am confused about boiling off the hop flavour in the hopped extract kits. I have a mangrove-jacks craft IPA kit waiting to go. I am (perhaps a little optimistically) assuming that there is a load of hoppy goodness in the kit that I would destroy with a long boil?
Should I follow the kit instructions (mix with boiling water & top up with cool water) or go for the palmer recommended long boil & achieve what he calls the hot break?

Reading more on this forum I am thinking I should get some additional finishing hops to add to this kit. Will check who stocks cascade hops in Perth (unless anyone has a recommendation?)

Thanks for the feedback in advance!

Alextacy

 

[TheWiggman]

You're getting two different brewing methods mixed up. The boil is required when you are using an unhopped malt extract or using a wort (liquor) from all-grain brewing.

If you're using a kit there is no boil required unless you are steeping grains or similar.

The 'disregard kit advice' is pretty broad but it's not all wrong. Mixing your sugar addition (not the stuff in the pouch) with very hot water will make your sugars dissolve more easily. You can mix with tap water if you want and many people do. The only issue is you're unlikely to get an accurate gravity reading on your first hydrometer sample.

What you really need to do is aim for your fermenter to be ~18°C. If it's a 30°C day, then mixing tap water with boiling will make it hotter again so take this into account.
Clean, sanitise (including the pouch) and mix it and your sugar all together well in the fermenter. Add your yeast, put it in a nice cool spot - or your fermentation fridge if you have one - and put on the airlock.

From then on I trust you know the rest.

(edited thanks to verysupple)

 

[verysupple]

Yep, I'm with TheWiggman, but with one minor clarification:

You're getting two different brewing methods mixed up. The boil is required when you are using an unhopped malt extract or using a wort (liquor) from all-grain brewing.

Also, while tap water isn't sterile there is an advantage to using it without boiling (I should mention that I used TheWiggman's method for over 20 batches with no infection problems so I wouldn't be too worried about nasties in the tap water). Most kitchen taps have an aerator on them (mesh thingy) so you get a bit more oxygen into your wort for the yeast to use. It's probably a minor difference, I'm just pointing out that there's always an up side.

 

[alextacy]

Correction - by finishing hops I meant dry hopping after initial ferment has subsided

 

[alextacy]

Great, thank you for the clarification.

I had felt that this maybe the case with hopped extracts not requiring a boil, but the book had me confused.

Am i right in thinking that most 'kit' extracts are hopped extracts (hence why they attribute a flavor)?

Are more experienced brewers boiling these & adding hops (is treating them like an unhopped extract) because their out of the can flavor isn't very good? Or are you making sure you have unhopped extracts to start with?
It seems like a big mix of methods is going on, but I guess that is part of the fun!

Cheers again.
A

 

[alextacy]

Ignore that, sorry I have worked it out. Boil the malts / hops / grains and add to the kit.

My brain sometimes...

 

[mofox1]

Am i right in thinking that most 'kit' extracts are hopped extracts (hence why they attribute a flavor)?

Yep.

Are more experienced brewers boiling these & adding hops (is treating them like an unhopped extract) because their out of the can flavor isn't very good? Or are you making sure you have unhopped extracts to start with?
It seems like a big mix of methods is going on, but I guess that is part of the fun!

Bit of both. You can add more to a kit, or you can create your desired flavour profile (eg English Pale Vs American Pale vs IPA, etc) by starting off with unhopped extracts.

 

[TheWiggman]

You're fairly on the money. If you're starting, you'll be doing what most know as 'kit and kilo' - a tin of goop you like you buy at Big W or home brew store and a kilo of sugar / brew enhancer / light dry malt etc. This is fundamentally an extract but shouldn't be confused with extract brewing.
Be careful you don't confuse the two when doing searches because they are very different approaches to making beer.

K&K brewing is fundamentally -

• Add tin
• Add water
• Add sugar
• Add yeast
• Ferment for a few weeks and bottle.

You can add some steeped grains or extra hops (you mentioned you want to do finishing hops which isn't a bad idea) to tailor the kits to taste but fundamentally it's very simple.

Extract brewing is -

• Heating water in a big pot
• Steeping specialty grains in said water
• Add malt extract
• Bring water to boil
• Add hops at various times during boil
• Chill (or not) to pitching temp, separate liquid to fermenter

At this point if the liquid was dehydrated you would get what you find in a K&K tin. A much more complicated process and requires some thought to make a good recipe.

Then there's all grain which I won't mention, as once you go there you can't come back.

Normal progression is to go from K&K to extract, then all grain (then it's all downhill). I personally made the leap to all grain from kits and that doesn't suit everyone. My advice is to master the kits first, absorb the collective knowledge on the forum and see where it takes you. Focus on sanitation, temp control, and most importantly PATIENCE and you are likely to make some very drinkable beer.

 

[RobW]

Ignore that, sorry I have worked it out. Boil the malts / hops / grains and add to the kit.

My brain sometimes...

Don't boil the malt (unless you mean malt extract), only the wort you extract from it.
Mash the malted and special grains between 63 and 68oC depending on what kind of beer you are making.

 

[alextacy]

Thanks guys. So far I have made drinkable beer from kits (with adding standard or special booster sugars & branded yeasts), but not getting awesome grin inducing beer.

Will do a couple more & then get some unhopped extracts & crank up my flavours, because that is what I like

Thanks again.

A

 

[HBHB]

The Craft Series Pouch IPA is an English style IPA with some late hop additions.

As the others have said, doing a short boil of the malt/dextrose/blend or whatever and adding the finishing hops you want to be accentuated will improve he overall flavour profile and sanitise it all. Who knows how well it's been handled for packaging post manufacture.

It's a decent kit and can be improved with a further late addition of Fuggles/Northdown/EKG etc. if sticking with the English theme. otherwise go nuts and knock yourself out with Warrior/Centennial/Cascade/Citra/Crystal or whatever grabs your fancy & it'll be fine. Most popular additions locally are a half kilo of dextrose and 1/2 kilo of LDME. Done on the English ale yeast, and English hopsit's a pretty sessionable IPA, otherwise throw in the west coast yeast and go a bucket full of US hops and join the chorus of lupulin addicts.

 

[pcmfisher]

You're fairly on the money. If you're starting, you'll be doing what most know as 'kit and kilo' - a tin of goop you like you buy at Big W or home brew store and a kilo of sugar / brew enhancer / light dry malt etc. This is fundamentally an extract but shouldn't be confused with extract brewing.
Be careful you don't confuse the two when doing searches because they are very different approaches to making beer.

K&K brewing is fundamentally -

• Add tin
• Add water
• Add sugar
• Add yeast
• Ferment for a few weeks and bottle.

You can add some steeped grains or extra hops (you mentioned you want to do finishing hops which isn't a bad idea) to tailor the kits to taste but fundamentally it's very simple.

Extract brewing is -

• Heating water in a big pot
• Steeping specialty grains in said water
• Add malt extract
• Bring water to boil
• Add hops at various times during boil
• Chill (or not) to pitching temp, separate liquid to fermenter

At this point if the liquid was dehydrated you would get what you find in a K&K tin. A much more complicated process and requires some thought to make a good recipe.

Then there's all grain which I won't mention, as once you go there you can't come back.

Normal progression is to go from K&K to extract, then all grain (then it's all downhill). I personally made the leap to all grain from kits and that doesn't suit everyone. My advice is to master the kits first, absorb the collective knowledge on the forum and see where it takes you. Focus on sanitation, temp control, and most importantly PATIENCE and you are likely to make some very drinkable beer.

Yeah, sort of.
If we don't talk about the isohops in kit brews and huge increase in the quality of the finished extract beer .

 

[TheWiggman]

Shhhhhhhh!