60 or 90 minute boil for Extract brew?

[WishboneBrewery]

60 or 90 minute boil for Extract brew?

Playing with Beer Engine I notice that not a lot of bittering comes from the last 30 minutes over a 90 minute boil, and any slight differences could be made up with an odd gram or two more hops here and there. So which is best a 60 or 90 minute boil?

Cheers

[OldSpeckledBadger]

I've playing around with this too but haven't come to any conclusions. In fact since I'm going to use DME, which doesn't need boiling, I've looked at doing the boil with just the crystal and black malt in and I can get the same hop utilisation with a 35 minute boil. This is for a single hop recipe (a mild). In the old days I used to do a 30 minute boil and the beer always tasted OK but maybe I've missed something blindingly obvious

[WishboneBrewery]

As far as I know not all LME needs to be boiled, it depends if its still got enzyme activity... some LME doesn't.
I may go for a 1 hour boil when I get my boiler sorted out.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

some LME doesn't.

I think you're right about that. My problem is that I don't know which type/grade/whatever does need boiling and which doesn't. Maybe one of the experienced brewers here could enlighten us?

[Waffty]

As a general rule, liquid & Dried malt extract DOESN'T need to be boiled, as it's already been processed to work as it is. Likewise, crystal, black, chocolate etc malt, has also been already been modified, so only really needs to be steeped, for the flavour to be released.

Hops do need to be boiled, in order for them to release their bitterness (unless you use the processed stuff, which comes in liquid form & has already been boiled), so this is where it gets a bit tricky. Hop utilisation is effected by the gravity of the wort it's been boiled in & the duration it's being boild for. Likewise, hops give up their flavours better, if boiled in some kind of wort solution.

So if you want to make life easy, then put everything into a pan, get something like Beersmith to work out the OG, utilisation, fix the boil time to suit you & throw in the quanties of hops that the software asks for.

Or you could put the majority of your DME in the fermentor, and do a mini boil to get the hop flavour you require, Beersmith has an option for late addition or DME.

In short, there is no correct way to brew using extract but you have to boil the hops, loose hops in a big volume of wort, give up the flavours more freely & why guess what this concentration of wort is, against what's in the FV? Why not throw it all in the copper & have done.

As for boil times, I wouldn't really go lower than 60 mins but I for one can't see too much point in doing a 90 min boil, as I'd prefer to finish early & in real terms, I can get the same flavour from a 60min boil, or be it, I may need a few more grams of hops in order to achieve this, which is ok for home brewers but not for commercial ventures (mind you, with energy prices like they are, may be this will change).

One point, when you do boil your DME, there will be a hot break, not as great as all grain but never the less, it will be there. Other the pain, in boiling 20l (I do corny size batches) wort etc, I kinda like the idea that everythings been mixed, boiled & hop'd together, plus don't forget, boiling everything, helps keep the bugs at bay, especially if you can rapid cool it & get it in the FV.

[WishboneBrewery]

I might have to work on the cooling side of things after I get my Stock Pot boiler sorted.

[WishboneBrewery]

Vina who produced John Bull marris otter extract have now folded and it is no longer available (except for old stock).

I'm just waiting for a couple of tins of that from LHB and it has a best before date of Dec 09 apparently, fingers crossed.

I don't suppose, you being an all-knowing-brewer etc, you could shed any light on my other question regarding Maris Otter here on the forum?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22619

[WishboneBrewery]

It may be best before 09, I was best before 09, but better still before 99

300pts will be close enough for the yield.

I was personally best around 2004, its been a steady decline since then!!!

Sorry though I don't understand the 300pts yield thing!?

[WishboneBrewery]

I was thinking more along the lines of 'Pale malt vs Maris Otter Malt' as far as taste and body would be concerned, would a mix of light and dark malts make for an approximation of Maris Otter malt?

Or is this just daft talk and Malt is malt is malt?

cheers

[arturobandini]

Marris Otter is a Pale Malt

[WishboneBrewery]

yeah... so why do people use maris otter instead of some generic pale malt....

I'm asking the question so I might attempt to closely match an extract brew to an AG, its not like I have to but I thought it would be interesting to try and compare the results of a recipe to the real thing... just ideas.

[arturobandini]

Because it's considered to be one of the superior pale malts in terms of it's malt characteristics etc. I would say that Maris Otter has actually become the "generic pale malt" now it is so widely used , especially in homebrewing, and the price isn't that dissimilar to Optic or Golden Promise for example. If you wanted to recreate the taste of Maris Otter...use Maris Otter?

[WishboneBrewery]

At the moment I'm stuck just starting out at Extract brewing, so the real Marris Otter will have to wait, I'm going to fake it with a couple of cans of Bulldog Blend Marris otter LME *with fingers firmly crossed that it tastes alright*

[arturobandini]

Maris Otter LME is effectively Maris Otter and I'm sure that for extract purposes it will be just the job. When you make the step over to All Grain you can experiment with different Pales.