Pilsner malt - (60 or 90 min boils)

[GFHomebrew]

I've never heard of the "lid on during boil"...while we boil our wort we are looking to isomerize the AA from the hops, produce some mailard reaction, and blowoff unwanted aldehyde compounds that cause undesired flavors in our packaged product. Under that line of thinking a "capped" kettle boil off would condense on your lid and be recombined with the wort, defeating the the original intent of boiling.
I'm I thinking about this wrong?

Same same Llewellyn that must be a welsh word with all those lls . lid off in my book and vigorous boil not only (in my limited all grain experience ) to drive off any nasties but increase boil gravity. I boil for 60 because of more modified grains and therefore reduced risk of DMS not that I think I could pick it ... Have you seen brulosophers DMS test?? He intentionally laced one of his batches with DMS and gave it out in one of his exbeerments along with a commercial Pilsner beer the majority of the test batch of people couldn't detect the DMS.! Check it out on his site

Me old mans Welsh

 

[LlewellynBrewHaus]

Same same Llewellyn that must be a welsh word with all those lls .

Me old mans Welsh

 

[LlewellynBrewHaus]

Yes, lots of welsh on my dads side-all German on my moms. llwellyn is the welsh origin of Lewis, I like all that ancestry stuff so used it in my brew name my brother has our dads side tracked back pretty far. I would seem that our family is pretty sorted- half were knife welding street fighters and the other half ministers lol

 

[J A]

I've never heard of the "lid on during boil"...

Some brewers like to keep a lid partially covering the pot but my sense that most prefer lid off. If you're brewing outside, keeping bugs and leaves from falling into the pot is an advantage. It takes less heat to achieve a strong boil with the lid partially on.
As I mentioned, I went back and forth a little, but now I let 'er rip with the lid fully off except for the last 10 minutes or so when I want to let the steam sterilize the lid.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

you can have the lid on but cracked until you reach a steaming point but at that point you need to keep the steam from dripping back into the pot, that steam might have dms in it

 

[Nosybear]

I've never heard of the "lid on during boil"...while we boil our wort we are looking to isomerize the AA from the hops, produce some mailard reaction, and blowoff unwanted aldehyde compounds that cause undesired flavors in our packaged product. Under that line of thinking a "capped" kettle boil off would condense on your lid and be recombined with the wort, defeating the the original intent of boiling.
I'm I thinking about this wrong?

Nope, you're exactly right. Putting a lid on the boil risks contamination by DMS: It boils out of the wort, dissolves back into the water condensing on the lid and drips back into your beer. The reason for the 90-minute boil is DMS was more common in the lightly-kilned Pilsner malts. I use a 90 minute boil for kettle caramelization, color development, etc. and I use it for most of my beers. I'm likely wasting 30 minutes worth of propane but hey, it makes me feel good about my beer!

 

[Robby]

Before I had a batch spoiled by DMS I always boiled 60 minutes. That beer tasted like it was brewed with leftover corn-on-the cob water. I threw it out. Since then I always boil about 90 minutes or a little more...until I reach my target SG.

 

[Nosybear]

90 mins is my default but I live at 6,000 feet so my wort boils at 200 degrees.

 

[HighVoltageMan!]

I often boil 90+ on Continental malt, sometimes it's nearly 120 minutes. I also mash 90+ minutes to get the best fermentable wort, I end up with 80+% attenuation with lager yeast. The beers are both dry and malty without any corn.

 

[J A]

Reviving a zombie thread!
It's a debate that'll live on as long as there's a new brewer doing his/her first lager and eager to ask the question. And there'll never be a shortage of opinions and techniques.
Interesting to look back and see what I was thinking about 3 years ago, though.

 

[thunderwagn]

I'd actually bre curious to know if there is any real evidence about the lid being on or off and DMS. A lot of these new all in one systems have lids that stay in the entire time.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I leave my lid on till it reaches 200f my alarm goes off to take the lid off otherwise I'll boil over

 

[Mase]

I boil with the lid off on a 3 vessel system. But only because that’s all I ever heard that leaving the lid off allows the precursors of DMS to escape to the atmosphere instead of in the wort. Not sure it would be a big deal for ales, but maybe more so for lagers. I have no direct experience to whether there’s anything to it or not, but I’ve been brewing this way for nearly three years... ain’t gonna stop now.

 

[thunderwagn]

I've always brewed with the lid off for all the same reasons. Easy enough to do, I'm just somewhat curious with all the newer all in ones that go against the covered theories.

 

[J A]

I'm just somewhat curious with all the newer all in ones that go against the covered theories.

I suspect that since they're aimed at the small-scale homebrew market, making great Pilsner-based lagers aren't their primary purpose. Basic ales using 2-rows will likely be the bulk of the beers brewed on those systems.

 

[Nosybear]

I've always brewed with the lid off for all the same reasons. Easy enough to do, I'm just somewhat curious with all the newer all in ones that go against the covered theories.

Latest I read is partially covered, gentle simmer until the last fourth of the boil, then boil the crap out of it. But I don't put a huge thermal load on my wort with the induction cooker so I'll just leave the cover off and smell all that lovely worty goodness....

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Continental Pilsner is my base malt for pretty much everything. I do 45 minute boils to save time. Never had any type of issue.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Haven't seen anything on DMS, but did see some testing of boil off rate with the lid on or off. They found it was unchanged.

I'd suspect it was definitely a problem, but newer malting processes and grain breeding have undoubtedly minimised the pre-cursors in the pale malts, and it may no longer be an issue.

 

[Craigerrr]

Physics would dictate that the weight of the lid would create a little bit of extra pressure, and boil temperature would be a wee bit higher. Not sure if that has any effect on the DMS or not...