Just curious if anyone has looked ( I'm sure someone here has) into what temp does lupilin become soluble??..I'm thinking that it is somewhat less than boil temp, but a boil confirms that the correct temp has been reached..yay..nay..???
I'm not sure.I have picked hops and put them in a glass of non hoppy beer and extracted alot of flavor. This could have been because of the alcohol although it was 5%.
I'm guessing you don't really mean Lupulin per se. Do you mean Alpha Acids (which are isomerized and dissolved to contribute bitterness) or essential oils (which contribute flavors and aromas)? Both can be utilized at temperatures below the boiling point.
It's not as simple as temp (Scroll down to middle of the page): http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=57700&start=15
yep, thats really what I'm sayin' so really, one does not have to boil in the kettle to get the desired results..either for hop utilization or sterility. I'm just trying to find a more frugal method for brewing..propane in my case is just another cost, but if I could lessen that it makes beer even cheaper to make, and shortens the brew day.
There are other reasons to boil. Here are a few... - Better (more efficient) hop utilization - Hot Break formation - Form and expel DMS
Boiling is nice because it requires no control. That is, the temperature will stay constant as long as its boiling, which makes the rate of isomerization easily predictable. This is not to mention that it aids greatly in sanitizing your wort for you. That being said, if you kept your wort at say, 180 deg F for an hour, you'd still get extraction of oils, isomerization of alphas - and I bet you'd kill a lot of the critters in there. I appreciate your ingenuity here - but frankly, you're over complicating things. Boil the wort. Brewers have been doing it this way for thousands of years. This is not a coincidence.
For hot break, you can get away with a shorter boil. But for DMS, the longer the better. It's the reason why many people do 90 minute boils, especially when using a pilsner base malt.
Switch from propane to NG. That'll reduce your fuel cost by around 90%, depending on the prevailing price of each in your area (though it varies from month to month). It will save time, but only in the sense that you won't need to drive anywhere to buy it, since it's delivered right to your home. As others have said, you really don't want to shorten your boil.
