LME Questions

[Sven6]

This weekend (while test driving the barstools at the new English Pub) we were having a conversation about Extract vs. All Grain brewing...

Isn't LME basically wort "boiled down", and in doing a LME extract batch aren't you basically just "re-hydrating" it?... You're not actually converting any sugars like in All Grain, right?

Would you really need to boil a batch if you were using LME, isnt it already sanitized?

Would'nt it be just like not boiling your must when doing a batch of Mead?

[BrewDog]

Yes. You are right. It is just boiled down wort.
There was an article entitled "Extract Experiments: Four Extract Methods Go Head to Head" in the Oct, 2004 issue of BYO that goes into detail on the differences between boiling and not boiling extract brews. The article's author, Chris Colby, is an occasional poster here and he says that you basically don't need to boil LME, but you should always boil DME, since it undergoes different processes.

[danno]

but don't forget you still need to boil in order to get hop bitterness, so it's not like you can just skip the step entirely...

[Sven6]

Danno - What if you were to just dry-hop it?


I haven't acually tried to Not Boil a LME batch, I was just wondering if it would have any effect on the flavor...
There's always been a debate over "To Boil or Not to Boil" in making Mead... With proponents of Not Boiling saying that it boils off some of the flavor of the honey... just curious if this would also apply to beer.

[Fast_Eddy]

Dry hopping is not what gives bitterness but instead hop aroma and hop flavor. See recent explanation below...

http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6510