How vigorous should the boiling be?

Hello again. After adding the thick, syrupy barley malt liquid, and stirring it in, how vigorous should the boiling be to get a good breakdown of the sugars? Will any of the malt settle to the bottom? Thanks.

For extract brewing… Do not add the sugars until the end of boil… Do boil the water, the bittering hops too… Say the last 10 minutes is time to add the sugars… Added earlier, your brew will darken due to caramalized sugar…
Sneezles61

The sugars are already converted in extract malt, really just getting them dissolved. I spreed up or slow down my boil based on my target volume. Like @sneezles61 said to hard of a boil will darken the beer.

Can’t imagine a boil should ever truly be considered “vigorous” in any true home brew. I like to compare boils to a bubbling brook. Slightly bubbling, but nothing that would be considered strong/out of control.

When i did extract. Brewing. I went to full boil brewing. Did add. The dme. At a rolling boil. The lme about 15 min before end of boil. And did stir in real well. Think they call it mailard effect.

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You need some sugars for hop conversion from my understanding. Hops in plain water don’t work as well.
@rbbarat a boil is a boil. You will go a little higher than 212F with the more sugars you have but you won’t gain much more. With larger volumes you will need more energy input to maintain a boil. The only reason, as Sneezles says, to not add all your DME and LME at the beginning is to avoid browning which might actually be desirable in brown ale up to stouts as you get a bit more of a nutty flavor. Almost all foods benefit from Maillard reactions and/or caramelization but your really blond beer might not. Many recipes call for adding some of your extract at the begging for hop conversion and the rest at the end. I know some brewers that add their remaining extracts at the end of the boil as it helps lower temperature and still gets pasteurized.

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The main issue I had with extract was adding it while the heat was on. It would sink to the bottom and burn. Didn’t notice it until I brewed a triple, little brown flecks were floating to the top. After that I would either turn the burner off or predilute to thin it out.

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When I started, my main issue was how to get the drippings out of the jug… Burnt my fingers many times… The paper label floating in the wort… oh dear…
Sneezles61

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Yes tell me. But one thing i started doing. Did heat up the lme jug. In some hot water. So the lme became more thinner. And easy to pour out

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Thanks! Interesting idea.

Add the malt extract when the temp gets to about 170. Take it off of the burner and add it and then stir so as not to scorch. I really don’t understand why anyone would add it at the end. Makes zero sense to me.

For the boil it should be vigorous but be careful not to scorch it. I use an electric stove and so I generally keep it at the setting just below High for that reason. Sometimes I will bump it up to High for a matter of maybe ten seconds or so before dropping it back down. But if I do that I am always stirring the pot…

If using LME put it into warm/hot water in the sink to warm it before using…

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The sense of adding it at the end is that it was already wort. So you get nothing extra from boiling the extract an extra amount of time. If you want a very light colored beer you want your wort to be on the burner for the least amount of time possible to avoid browning.
Personally, I only shut off the burner when adding LME as it is so heavy it sinks to the bottom. So in order to get it fully dissolved before it scorches I take the pot off the heat and pour the LME as slowly as possible.

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