I started brewing a couple of years ago and got some extract brews under my belt. Then our son came along, we moved house and I basically packed everything away. I’d like to get back into it so have dusted off the equipment. Could the SD brewmasters pls advise on the following:
Is it necessary to boil the water you will use for brewing? I recall this as being quite time-consuming (I don’t have any sort of large capacity boiler), if I add a crushed campden tablet to plain tap water is this sufficient?
When you sanitise your brew accoutrements, is it OK to just take whatever you are using out of the sanitised water and use it straight away? I’m wondering if residues from the sanitiser can contaminate your brew.
I had been using a 5L pot for the boil, as this was the largest I could find just on the high St. It seems that more serious brewers will use a big boiler to basically boil the entire quantity of wort, then run it off. I can’t afford this right now, is it OK to boil at a relatively concentrated level, then dilute fivefold in the brew bin?
Fancy trying the following recipe for Clive of India IPA, comments welcome.
4.5 kg of Brupaks Premium Grade Malt Extract
80 gms Challenger Hops
50 gms of Goldings Hops
Brewing Yeast
Method
Dissolve the ME in a brewing bucket in hot water, add to boiler and bring volume to 5 gallons (23 litres).
Bring to the boil and add 80 gms of Challenger Hops and boil for 1 hour.
15 minutes before the finish of the boil add 25 gms of Goldings and remaining 25 gms just before switching off the boil.
Cool wort and pitch yeast.
Rack after 5 days into a closed fermenter. After a further two weeks, fine and bottle or barrel in the usual way.
If you can only boil a small volume, you should really consider going with the “late add” method. Bring your water to a boil and follow the recipe for the hops schedule. With about 20 mins left, remove it from the heat, add your extract and stir to dissolve, and then return it to a boil. Put 20 minutes back on the clock and finish it out. This will prevent your extract from caramelizing, which will improve the taste and fermentables, and improve the hop flavor–very important for an IPA.
Yep, boil first take off the burner, let the pot’s bottom cool a little and add in your extract, mix and return to heat. You have to boil the extract/water anyway so you might as well do it now. The point isn’t to sanitize your water; it’s to get the wort to a temperature profile that allows for complex sugars to be broken down.
Always rinse, especially if you’re using bleach.
Sure, you’ll be fine. The guys with massive keg size boilers are doing an all grain and basically pull everything from there. You sound like an extract guy and you’ll be fine adding the resulting wort to water
For extra flavour you could consider adding a small amount of ground crystal malt in a muslin bag to your initial boil.
It isn’t necessary to boil all the water you use to brew with, just the water you are using to dissolve your malt. Never, ever, EVER use Campden tablets! At any time! Ever!
Depending on what sanitizer you are using, rinsing may be unnecessary. If you are using anything other than iodopher, rinse.
I’ve brewed hundreds of batches with only a partial boil. As long as your tap water is decent, it isn’t necessary to boil all of it. Pouring the concentrated wort into cool water also dumps your temperaturs down to pitching temp. very quickly.
Thanks all - v helpful. I’m in Edinburgh which used to have a massive brewing industry (sadly mostly disappeared), so I’m assuming the water is decent. It’s certainly fine to drink. What’s so bad about campden tablets **Silenus **- do they flavour the brew somehow?
If I understand the late add method correctly, Yossarian, I would just have hops in boiling water for about an hour, prior to adding the extract? Sounds a bit odd, maybe I’ve misunderstood?
Campden tablets not only give an off-flavor, they are useless. There is no need to add sulfites to any brew if basic sanitation is followed.
You understand Yossarian correctly. I’ve done extract brews that way before. The only reason you boil an extract recipe is for sanitation and hop additions. So why boil the wort that long if you don’t have to? Just boil the water, adding hops when the schedule calls for them, then add the extract towards the end.
I also second the idea of steeping some crystal malt while bringing your water to a boil.
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Moved thread from General Questions to Cafe Society, where all the food & drink stuff lives.
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Regarding boiling/dilution: A large brewpot was my first significant investment. It does change the flavor profile if you boil and hop highly concentrated and then dilute in the fermenter. Perhaps the “late add” that Yossarian would take care of that, I don’t know.
Regarding sanitizing: Commercial sanitizers are designed to be used without a rinse afterward, but if you’re using something like bleach, definitely rinse things!
Grey, I don’t understand your first paragraph. In all the time I brewed, I never “pre-boiled” and cooled water before the boil. Why do that? I just put my water in the kettle, brought it to boiling, and added the grain (and/or extract) and initial hops. What does a preboil accomplish?
It depends on your water. I never boil the water I’m using, but I happen to know my tap water is of high enough quality that it’s not necessary.
Again, it depends on how you are sanitizing. I use chlorine bleach, so I have to rinse, or the yeast would be mighty unhappy.
My largest pot holds about 4.5 gallons if it’s full to the brim. I usually brew in about 3 gallons of water, and then make up the difference with cold water and ice. This has the added advantage of speeding up the cooling process so I can pitch my yeast sooner.
Grey, I don’t understand your first paragraph. In all the time I brewed, I never “pre-boiled” and cooled water before the boil. Why do that? I just put my water in the kettle, brought it to boiling, and added the grain (and/or extract) and initial hops. What does a preboil accomplish?
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I guess I was unclear. You don’t cool it right down but you take the boiling water off the burner and give the pot’s bottom a chance to cool a little. That way, when you add the extract you avoid caramelizing it. The extract is so much denser than the hot water that it rushes to the bottom and it can burn on an overly hot bottom.
I will admit I have read about die-hards that boil their water the night before to drive off chlorine flavours. I don’t, but that’s mainly because I’m lazy.
Dittos here. I have on the order of three empty 5-gallon carboys and about four empty 3-gallon carboys (and about another six assorted carboys with cider from a year and a half back) that need to be filled stat. It’s been about two years since I last brewed, and I only had one 5-gallon carboy back then. (I made a lot of cider two winters ago.) Time to get multiple batches going.
Probably the most important reason why you should late add: If you (per your OP) are boiling 4.5 kg of liquid extract in a 5L pot, you’re in for some world-class over-boils. Assuming a specific gravity similar to corn syrup (1.36 g/ml), 4.5 kg of syrup has a volume of ~3.3L. What survives in the pot will certainly be terribly caramelized and unfermentable, and you may ruin the pot after one use.
Extract is pre-boiled wort; all that is absolutely necessary is to get it to dissolve in the water. Warm water is only necessary for the steeping/partial mashing of the grains. Boiling water is really only necessary for sterilization and to get the proper hop extractions. For your kitchen’s sake, please don’t boil 3.3L of syrup in a 5L pot!
Here’s one of several websites you get when you Google “late addition extract”:
I’m going to have to try this late addition method. I’ve never come across it before, but it does sound very sensible. I just ordered enough supplies for a few batches from Northern Brewer, so hopefully some time next week I’ll employ this new technique.
