So, just bottled my 2nd brew, La Petite Orange extract kit from NB. Still learning and doing a lot of reading. Came across a thread about full boil vs Partial boil and found that doing a full 5g boil you get better utilization of your Hops, better clarity, less likely to Caramelize the LME/DME and less likely to contaminate the wort. I followed the recipe and added the coriander and orange zest. 1wk primary, 2 wk secondary. I def caramelized the LME bc I watched it turn from an orange color to a brown color during fermentation. I did Caribou Slobber as my first brew, so it was dark from the get go. At the moment, I don’t have a big enough pot to do a 5-6g boil. I read you could do the partial boil and add half the Extract at 60min and the rest at the end of the boil or 10-15min before the end. How would you go about this with recipes that call for LME and DME at diff times? For instance, all the LME at the beginning and DME towards the end of the boil.
I think you are fine however you want to split it up. Doing all of the liquid together and then all of the dry together seems to be the easiest way to go about it.
I think the the color change you see in the fermenter is due to settling. Carmelization from boiling a thick wort would have already happened in the boil. It wouldn’t happen in the fermenter.
Adding a portion of the extract late, say at 15 minutes left in the boil will avoid darkening and improve hop utilization. It is a great strategy when using a smaller brew kettle. I would add the portion of extract at the beginning that would correspond to a full boil, that is, if you boil 2.5 gallons, add half of the extract. If you boil 3.3 gallons, add 66% of the extract at the beginning. That is, start with whatever portion of the extract would be a similar concentration as if you boiled the full batch.
I would add the DME at the end, using the bulk of the LME initially, and consider that DME adds about 20% more than LME to the thickness due to the lack of water in the DME. It is not that important when you add DME versus LME, but I find adding DME late is easier because it does not sink right to bottom and burn.
