Boil the hops, not the Malt Extract!

[Kosh]

Found this on the web, sound reasonable?

Boil the hops, not the Malt Extract!
When making extract beer and boiling hops, you can improve your beer by making some minor changes to the traditional brewing methods that have been commonplace in USA homebrewing for the past 24 years.

1) Steep the crushed grains in 2-3 gallons of 150„a water for 30 minutes.

2) Remove the grain from the water (Wort)

3) Heat wort to boiling.

4) Add Irish moss and bittering (or boiling) hops, 1 cup of your malt extract (syrup or powder) and boil for 45 minutes to 60 minutes. (with your hops obviously) Wait until the end of the boil to add the remainder of the malt sugar.

5. There is one very important thing to remember with this method. Your hop extraction will increase by about 25%, so reduce your boiling hops accordingly.. ..........................

** Question, What about 2.5 gallon batch? Will i get same results using 1 gallon for steep and boil?
Thanks!

 

[GFHomebrew]

Found this on the web, sound reasonable?

Boil the hops, not the Malt Extract!
When making extract beer and boiling hops, you can improve your beer by making some minor changes to the traditional brewing methods that have been commonplace in USA homebrewing for the past 24 years.

1) Steep the crushed grains in 2-3 gallons of 150„a water for 30 minutes.

2) Remove the grain from the water (Wort)

3) Heat wort to boiling.

4) Add Irish moss and bittering (or boiling) hops, 1 cup of your malt extract (syrup or powder) and boil for 45 minutes to 60 minutes. (with your hops obviously) Wait until the end of the boil to add the remainder of the malt sugar.

5. There is one very important thing to remember with this method. Your hop extraction will increase by about 25%, so reduce your boiling hops accordingly.. ..........................

** Question, What about 2.5 gallon batch? Will i get same results using 1 gallon for steep and boil?
Thanks!

Great ideah I don't see why not if it's all scaled down accordingly m

 

[BOB357]

People have been doing extract brews with late extract additions for quite a number of years, so it's nothing new. Note that Irish Moss/Whirlfloc should be added much later in the boil. The last 10 to 15 minutes is normal, and even at flameout if you're
doing a steep/whirlpool of any length.

 

[Nosybear]

Found this on the web, sound reasonable?

Boil the hops, not the Malt Extract!
When making extract beer and boiling hops, you can improve your beer by making some minor changes to the traditional brewing methods that have been commonplace in USA homebrewing for the past 24 years.

1) Steep the crushed grains in 2-3 gallons of 150„a water for 30 minutes.

2) Remove the grain from the water (Wort)

3) Heat wort to boiling.

4) Add Irish moss and bittering (or boiling) hops, 1 cup of your malt extract (syrup or powder) and boil for 45 minutes to 60 minutes. (with your hops obviously) Wait until the end of the boil to add the remainder of the malt sugar.

5. There is one very important thing to remember with this method. Your hop extraction will increase by about 25%, so reduce your boiling hops accordingly.. ..........................

** Question, What about 2.5 gallon batch? Will i get same results using 1 gallon for steep and boil?
Thanks!

John Palmer recommends boiling in a thin wort - in other words, only using a portion of the extract, then adding the remaining extract at about 10 minutes. Not any different than this, really, except you're making the thin wort with steeping grains. Should work fine. It's worth considering when making very light colored beers, not so much when making a dark beer because the main problem with boiling light colored extract malts is they darken.

 

[Yooper]

Your list is pretty close to what most people do- except for the bit about hops utilization. The hops utilization is actually increased in a wort with little malt extract, so it isn't reduced.

The utilization in the batch IS reduced, however. It's not about the isomerization of alpha acids in the wort you boil, though. It's about dilution.

There is a set amount of the amount of alpha acids that can isomerize in solution before the wort is saturated. It's said to be a max of something like 85-100 IBUs (likely on the lower end of that in the real world).

So say you have 2.5 gallons of 85 IBU wort. That's fine, and you top it up with 2.5 gallons of 0 IBU water. That means you have at most 42 IBUs in the finished wort. Not great for IPAs or other bitter beers, but ok for most situations.

Now, if you only boil 1 gallon and top off with 4 gallons of water, you can see that you would have much lower IBUs in the finished wort, and that is a limitation of the smaller boil size.

Otherwise, yes, your method is a good description of doing a late extract addition brew.