Is it really necessary to boil the malt extract?

[beam beat]

I'm wondering if you really need to have the ME in the pot for an extract brew. I can see that sterilisation of the ME would have been important when people got their ME from random sources, but these MEs made and sold specifically for brewing - would they not be made and packaged in sterile conditions?

Partly I'm just wondering it hypothetically, but also wondering about the increased flavour you might be able to extract from hops boiled in the pure water or the tea.

cheers

[beam beat]

Just to add I'm thinking particularly of tinned liquid ME.

[jonewer]

YES!

This from some one who has 20 liters of just drinkinable beer and another 20 liters of very expensive lawn-feed because he didnt boil the whole lot.

Trust me, if you dont boil it then you are just wasting good ingredients. You might as well not bother.

You get no hot or cold break which gives you a cloudy, hazy brew and your hop utilisation will be rubbish. May as well throw good hops in the bin as soon as you have bought them.

False economy to try and brew extract without a boiler. You're just wasting time and money and the end of the day.

[beam beat]

Okay, I get the hot/cold break issue (though everything I read suggests this about clearing it - i.e. an aesthetic issue rather than a flavour one) but I don't get why the hops need to be boiled in the ME. Can't they just be boiled in the water/tea to get the flavour? Or is there something that happens between the hops and the ME solution?

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Okay, I get the hot/cold break issue (though everything I read suggests this about clearing it - i.e. an aesthetic issue rather than a flavour one) but I don't get why the hops need to be boiled in the ME. Can't they just be boiled in the water/tea to get the flavour? Or is there something that happens between the hops and the ME solution?

If you don't have malt in there, how are you going to control/predict your hop utilisation?

[beam beat]

If you don't have malt in there, how are you going to control/predict your hop utilisation?

I suppose you would need a period of trial and error with the new method until you had worked out an adjustment factor .

Sorry if it seems like an odd question - mostly it's just in the spirit of scientific enquiry. I can see advantages to not boiling the ME though - avoidance of possible burning being one of them.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Sorry if it seems like an odd question - mostly it's just in the spirit of scientific enquiry. I can see advantages to not boiling the ME though - avoidance of possible burning being one of them.

Malt extract is no more likely to burn during the boil than wort straight from a mash tun. It's not an issue.