Why you should not boil hopped malt extract

Hopped malt extract is already preboiled, so what happens if you accidentally boil it again? Find out on this week’s episode of BrewTalk with Mr. Beer.

This is one of the mistakes we see quite often, especially from new brewers. We also see this when people want to go mad scientist from the get-go and boil their HME with all kinds of hops or other flavors.

When most people think of brewing beer for the first time they think of this boiling liquid and all kinds of different complex processes. While that is true when brewing from all-grain, it is not true for brewing with Mr. Beer.

Since we used hopped malt extract all of that boiling and the complicated process has already been done. So if you do boil your hopped malt extract then that can lead to bad off-flavors in your brew.

It should be noted that hopped malt extract and malt extract are two completely different things. For this purpose, we are only talking about hopped malt extract.

You never want to boil your hopped malt extract can.

The can of hopped malt extract contains isomerized hops. This means that the hops in the can have already been exposed to a certain amount of heat to achieve a specific level of bitterness for that style of extract.

If you decide to boil your can of HME it will cause off-flavors in your beer.  Plus it will make your beer much darker than it should be.

When you boil your can of hopped malt extract you run the risk of over-isomerizing the hops. What this can do is lead to an extremely bitter beer and also create a medicine like flavor in your beer.

This is not a flavor that will condition out.

So it is best to remember, that when brewing with hopped malt extract you never want to boil the contents of the can.