Fermenting un-boiled wort and hop extract??

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Just wondered........hmm!!
What would you end up with if you collected 23 litre of mash tun running's, added hop extract to bitter and didn't bother to boil (no hot/cold break)???

Would it ferment, would you end up with something drinkable??

BB

[floydmeddler]

I've considered using hop extract for mini beers; basically 500ml starters fermented with yeasts I collect from bottles and pub pints. Anyone ever used hop extract? Does it just bitter or does it add flavour and aroma too?

[floydmeddler]

seems hop extract isn't spoken about round these parts

[Naich]

I occasionally did hop extract in the dark days when I used to make my beer with kits. Just say no.

[Jim]

I've heard some people say hop extract's fine, but the one time I used some the beer was so horrible I chucked it out.

Maybe it was a bad batch of hop extract, though, as many commercial brewers are reputed to use it. I believe some kits are hopped that way (or used to be).

[boingy]

If you don't boil the wort you will not end up with a stable beer. All sorts of stuff happens in the boil that I don't fully understand. Somebody more technical than I am can probably explain better.

Hop extract is best used as a fine tuning thing. If you want to boost the bitterness level then a bit of isomerised hop extract will do the trick.
The "isomerised" part means that it does not need boiling. Once again, I've no idea of the science of this.

But the short answer to your question is yes it would ferment, but it would mostly be rubbish beer.

[danbrew]

Surely you could get all sorts of other nasties in there as it won't even be pasteurised... So might go off very quickly...?