Beer Forum

Do I really need to boil for 60 minutes while making a DME-based Hefe? 6 lbs of DME, 1 oz of Northern Brewer Hops and 60 minutes of boiling.

I've read that I can boil the hops and about 25% of the DME for the full 60 and add the last 75% with 20 minutes or so left. My question is why? Do I really need to boil 1 oz of hops for 60 minutes to get the bittering in?

Is there any reason I can't just do a 30 minute boil with the hops and DME? How long does it really take to get the hops into the wort?

You only need to boil for about 15 minutes. Or 30 minutes would be fine. Just double the amount of hops used, or use software to hit the exact IBUs that you want with the shorter boil. I think it's best to just go 15-20 minutes on an extract hefe. The longer boil is doing nothing to help anything.

I noted the color of the all Breiss Bavarian Wheat DME wort before the boil and after the boil and became much darker.
I am concerned that I have a lot of caramelization during resulting from the boil. My pure Pilsen DME batch never got that dark. I check to make sure there was no scorching at the bottom of the brew kettle. There was none. Should I be concerned that I have too much unfermentables now? Has anyone had experience with this DME?
Is that darkness natural? From caremelization?

I don't think the darkness comes from caramelization so much as oxidation. This is very common with extract brewing, and you might experience a slight "twang" to beers made of all extract, especially if they darken quite a bit like this one did. If you want to lighten things up, you either need to shorten the boil, boil a larger volume, use lighter extract, add white sugar, or switch over to partial-mash or all-grain brewing.

We sometimes brew extract, usually when it's more-socially-acceptable to save time on any given brewday. We boil for 45, adding a pound of sugar right at 45, then the rest of the extract at 15.

Once you have a process template down, stick to it and you're going to start getting great results.

Millenium is our favorite hop for bittering a 45 minute addition. Briess Wheat is kinda funky, so you're not alone.

kswbeer wrote:We sometimes brew extract, usually when it's more-socially-acceptable to save time on any given brewday. We boil for 45, adding a pound of sugar right at 45, then the rest of the extract at 15.

Once you have a process template down, stick to it and you're going to start getting great results.

Millenium is our favorite hop for bittering a 45 minute addition. Briess Wheat is kinda funky, so you're not alone.

It takes a long time.
We think if we don't want it to have special features, I just boil it for about twenty minutes.