I am an extract brewer right now and am planning to hopburst a pale ale using LME and DME. My question is about steeping carafoam/pils, after I steep it and bring wort to a boil, do I have to boil for 60 min to eliminate DMS from it or can I do a shorter boil because my first hop addition will be only 15 min?
Are you doing mini mash or all extract? My understanding is if you're using pils malt for mashing you should boil for a while. I did a 90 min boil last sunday when I did my all grain batch with some carapils. I had almost a pound of carapils with 13 pounds of base malt to give you an idea of the ratio. I didnt taste anything funny when I transferred. Be sure to boil with the lid off and start with a larger volume to compensate if you can. If not just add water as it boils off.
I was thinking that 8 oz of carafoam would get the head retention that I desire, should I do a full 60 min foil then or could I shorten the boil time. If there is some uncertainty, time is not a hug issue I can just do the full length boil.
Sorry, missed that part. I will just be steeping for ~45min and that's it. past that it's just lme, dme, hops, yeast nutrient, whirlflock. No mini mash.
It sounds like you are steeping grains in a bag? I would do a full boil if you are using grain so all the nasties from the grain steep (or mash) can boil off. I havent used carafoam so I dont know if you need to extend your boil. Im not sure if its a pils or just a crystal malt, standard practice for a pils is to boild for and hour and a half to get rid of the DMS.
I always did a full boil with extracts and steeping grains, same with partial mash. Not sure it was always necessary, but it doesn't hurt either. You can add your extracts in phases through the boil if you like. This supposedly reduces malliad reactions and darkening of the wort. In practice tho, I never noticed that this made much difference.
No worries man, Im hoping someone else can comment to tell us if carafoam is a pils malt and needs an extended boil or if 60 minutes should be enough. If its not a pils Ill use that next time instead of the carapils, that should make it easier to do some first wort hopping...
Weyermann Carafoam is, AFAIK, made from the same barley cultivar as their regular German Pilsner Malt. The important thing though, is the kilning level, which I believe is also similar. Light kilning leads to more SMM (the DMS precursor). Having said that, I wouldn't (and haven't) worry much about the SMM from Carapils or Carafoam, mainly because they are used in fairly small quantities. Let's say (for example) that Pilsner (and similar kiln level malts like Carapils/Carafoam) malts have twice as much SMM as a more highly kilned pale ale malt. So add a whole pound of Carapils/Carafoam to 10 pounds of pale ale malt. The level of SMM for this 11 pound grist would be equivalent to 12 pounds of pale ale malt. Not really significant. I don't know if double the SMM (pilsner vs. pale ale) is correct or typical, but that's the way I look at it. I only do 90 minute boils where pilsner malt is the base malt, and have never had DMS noticed in my beers.
