I'm a curious guy and likes to know how things work. Since i started brewing i just follow the process laid out in the books. So i was wondering the last time i brewed, why do a 60 minute boil? Is this so the bittering hops have enough time to do there thing?
Yes to that and so that you can drive off DMS and so you can sanitize your wort and anything else that goes in the pot.
Its all about hop utilization, i've done 30min boils and hop blasted (lots of hops at the end). 60min in general gets all the AA to isomerize, so you don't get flavor or aroma, only bitterness (generally speaking). But if you want some of all three, lower boils are possible, but you use a lot more hops to achieve the same bitterness.
Depends on the style and what you are making too. Pilsner laden beers, I do 90 min boils. Beer that have a higher OG, I do a 90 min boil. Styles like a Scotch ale, or Barleywine where I'm keeping it somewhat simple and looking for some more caramel color, I'll do a 120 min boil. But regardless of trying to get a bittering charge at 60, there are times I do a 60 min boil, and don't add any hops until 20 min left in the boil anyways.
Boiling sanitizes and concentrates the wort while isomerizing alpha acids, driving off DMS, and promoting protein break.
I suppose. But you will boil your extract beer right? Consider the following: Sanitizing: the extract you buy is probably sanitized. If handled properly, you might not need to a boil for this. Concentrating the wort: as an extract brewer, you can control this by dilution DMS: I think the processing of extract takes care of this, maybe? Protein break: I suspect the processing includes a protein break, but I think you can still get more protein break from extract (but I haven't done many extract brews and wasn't really paying attention) Isomerizing alpha acids: Requires temps > 170F, IIRC, and becomes more efficient as you near boiling. Listen to the Brewing Network's Brewcaster Challenge featuring JZ vs. Moscow in which JZ was handicapped by not boiling. He used extract to try to help overcome the limitation (but still lost, apparently due to other circumstances).
Yes, one of the reasons is hop utilization. But it's not a question of getting 'all' the alpha acids from them...you never will. The longer you boil, the higher the utilization. But the utilization curve starts to flatten (diminishing returns) once you get much above 60 minutes.
Indeed! More than once, I've done a 90 minute boil, forgetting to adjust the bittering hops, without a detrimental increase in bitterness.
