A mixture

[lorand]

As i intend to brew using all extract I have decided to use this forum although some of the questions relate to other things. If I use the wrong terminology I apologise in advance.

Is it really necessary to boil the extract when boiling the hops or specialty grains? I was under the impression that the extract suffered if reboiled and had planned to boil smaller amounts of water with the other ingredients which would then be added to the rest of the water with the malt extract for fermentation.

I was inspired to take up home brewing on a visit to a micro brewery whos method is as follows starting at the fermentation stage.(1) Ferment
(2)Secondary fementation /conditioning at 8 degrees (3)Decant into barrel. I was going to use polypins for my draft at stage (3) but am not sure how well it would store or if a live beer would blow them up. I know you can release the pressure a little by opening the tap but my work means that I am sometimes away for ten days. Would it help to keep the polypins in a fridge?

Hope some one can understand my ramblings and offer some advice.

[steve_flack]

Yes, it is necessary to boil malt extract as it hasn't been boiled so hasn't had the proteins preciptated. Also it isn't necessarily sterile.

BTW, you don't boil speciality grains. You steep them at around 65-70C.

[BarryNL]

Is it really necessary to boil the extract when boiling the hops or specialty grains? I was under the impression that the extract suffered if reboiled and had planned to boil smaller amounts of water with the other ingredients which would then be added to the rest of the water with the malt extract for fermentation.

You need to do at least some boiling of the extract. Extract is not necessarily sterile - particularly dried extract and so needs to be boiled to be sanitary enough to ferment.

Only no-boil kits don't need to be boiled because doing so would destroy any flavouring or aroma hopping.

By the way, steep the speciality grains, don't boil them.

[mysterio]

As i intend to brew using all extract I have decided to use this forum although some of the questions relate to other things. If I use the wrong terminology I apologise in advance.

No worries, this is a very helpful forum.

Is it really necessary to boil the extract when boiling the hops or specialty grains? I was under the impression that the extract suffered if reboiled and had planned to boil smaller amounts of water with the other ingredients which would then be added to the rest of the water with the malt extract for fermentation.

Yes, as Steve said you need to boil it to sterilise it, drive off DMS and to precipitate proteins. In theory, you shouldn't really boil malts OR hops in water alone as the PH is not acidic enough and you may extract unwanted compounds (tannins generally) - the extract produces a slightly acidic environment where this doesn't happen.

I was inspired to take up home brewing on a visit to a micro brewery whos method is as follows starting at the fermentation stage.(1) Ferment
(2)Secondary fementation /conditioning at 8 degrees (3)Decant into barrel. I was going to use polypins for my draft at stage (3) but am not sure how well it would store or if a live beer would blow them up. I know you can release the pressure a little by opening the tap but my work means that I am sometimes away for ten days. Would it help to keep the polypins in a fridge?

Sounds fine - to avoid the polypins exploding you want to let the fermentation step completely finish. I usually leave the beer in the first (primary) fermentation vessel for a good week after signs of fermentation have finished just to make sure, and this also gives the yeast a chance to 'clean up' any unwanted compounds from the beer.

[lorand]

Would the comments about boiling have been different if I said I was going to use liquid malt extract, this surely has been boiled at some stage.

Or must I boil because of the negative effect on the hops if boiled alone.