Water vs Wort

[Boon]

I'm currently an extract + steeped grains brewer with a few brews under my belt. Plans for all grain are underway but there is one part of my current brewing process that bugs me because I don't understand it. 

When I do a brew (21L batch) my process is something like:

- Steep grains in a gallon of water for half an hour

- As I only have a 17L brew pot, add half of malt extract and bring water level to ~3 gallons and boil. 

- After hot break, add hop additions. Just before flame out, add the other half of extract. 

- Cool, add additional water, add yeast starter, ferment. 

This is following a combination of instructions from how to brew and brewing classic styles. 

I was chatting to another home brewing mate and his process to do the same beer would be something like:

- Steep grains as above

- In another pot, bring a small amount of water to the boil (~3 litres) and do hop additions. 

- Put steep grain water and hop water into fermenter. Add malt extract, bring water level up to 21L (and the right temperature). Ferment. 

I'd like to think what I do is a little more 'true' to an all grain process, but his process is a hell of a lot quicker because he boils a lot less water. I've tried to do some research on the differences but i didn't have much success. I've read that the hop utilization goes down with the gravity of the boil, but it would seem that is just a negative for my method. I imagine the malt extract also caramelises a bit during the boil, which would make my beer a touch darker?

I guess the key questions I have are:

1) What is likely to be the difference in the end beer between the two methods? Different hop flavour etc?

2) If you are only boiling hops in water, does the water volume make any difference? 

I'd really appreciate any insight. 

[Dan]

Your way is the way I used to do it and how "How to Brew" says to do it. Other way sounds a bit dodgy to me. How would you calc IBU's  with your mates way?. His one looks more like a hop steeping process........

[jt]

The wort from the steeping needs to be boiled, not sure if he's doing that from the description above ?

[Boon]

I'll have to check with him on the exact method. Does it need to be boiled to extract the hot break and to sanitise it? 

[jt]

Yea, boil to sterilise and usually with hops

[Liam Callaghan]

Hey Boon,

I don't usually brew like this but have made one a few weeks ago with a friend of mine that wants to start making her own beer.  I pretty much followed the second way you described and we kept the boiling liquid down to a minimum.

We didn't use any grains for steeping as we used the tailings from one of my brews so had to boil it up the same.  Eiher way that part is common to both and will give you a great addition to your beer.

• Boiled up 5 litres of work and pitched in hops in 3 additions over an hour long boil to sterilise the hops and wort. 
• The two LME (Briess Pilsner and Briess Munich) were opened and mixed into cold water in the fermentor.
• The hopped wort was then passed through a sterilised strainer into the fermentor.
• Topped up with water.
• Came in at about 22 degrees so we pitched the yeast directly and shook for 20 minutes or so.

 

We did the IBU calcs on Brewsmith2 and they seem to be about right on the first taste, maybe a little higher but hard to tell.  We are both happy with the hoppy outcome.  My understanding is that if you hop in just plain boiling water it will strip more out of your hops than if its in a sugary wort.  This is soemthing I know but no idea where from as with many things so could be total sh ite :p  The wort we used was about 1.020 so pretty weak and the hopped beer tastes pretty much what I expected for what its worth.

Volume of water shouldn't make a difference apart from how hot your final fermentor temp will be unless you can/do chill it.

You shouldn't get any different flavours from either option regards hopping and I'm not sure what you gain from boiling the LME.  This is sanitary as its canned. We sterilised the outside of the container before pouring to minimise any infections.

The Briess malt is awesome btw, they have single grain malts in each container so as good as picking your own grain.  First one I have brewed with it and still only tasted from the fermentor but I reckon she'll take away silver at the very least in the regionals this year.  Not bad for her first beer.

Again, I'm not very experienced in brewing like this but hope that helps.  Feel free to give me a shout if you want to discuss it or join us for a beer if your in Auckland, the other lads all started brewing from kits so they have a lot more experience than me.

L.

Ps.  You can get some pretty nice flavours from caramelising the wort a bit and it can make your beer darker.  Tom made a cracking barley wine from a single grain and just boiled it to syrup.  Amazing caramel flavours in it.  A bit of dark magic though, be hard to reproduce each time or get the same flavours I reckon but definitely worth it after tasting his beer.

[Boon]

Hi Liam,

Thanks heaps for the massive reply. A lot of what you have said lines up with what i've read/learnt. Unfortunately, it doesn't really completely justify the several hours longer I spend brewing my beer!

As for the Briess malt extracts, I have no idea you could get them in NZ. I've got brewing classic styles and a lot recipes call for Pilsner and Munich LME. I did a quick google and got no results in NZ so I assumed they weren't available. Where can you get them from?

The beer offer sounds good but might have to wait a bit because i'm based in Dunedin.  I am a big fan of the collaborative and social aspects of beer brewing.  Thanks again. 

[Liam Callaghan]

You're welcome mate, in my opinion you would be better spent reducing the time it takes to make your beer or make two!  Definitely worth running and seeing.  If it tastes as good or better then you are on the right track.

Brewers Coop sold the Briess, really neat to see single LME and it does taste good from what I've tried so far.  First bottle will be ready in a week or two.  Will let you know if I remember.

I'd be happy to use myself instead of all grain for the time it took to make.

I don't see much need in boiling the LME, its sterilised as its canned so long as you don't scoop it out with your finger it should be good to go.  I do appreciate that it mixes with water better when its hot though.  Took some serious shaking to get it dissolved which my poorly maintained abs complained about later.

Good lagering down in Dunedin this time of year!

[Hillman]

On boiling the LME, I've experimented with that a bit. Adding it in at the beginning seems to result in a darker colour than adding it at the end. I couldn't really detect a change in flavour though.