Does boiling a home brew kit kill or modify hop content

[Fatgodzilla]

Read somewhere that if you boil a commercial home brew it will sanitise the wort but will also kill off or leach out the hop contents. Is this true. I guess point is, boil up a kit beer you must replace the hops?

[rwh]

There's no reason to boil kit cans, as they come in a completely sanitary state.

What happens is you lose the volatile hop compounds that are responsible for flavour. Think complex flavours like floral/spice etc, basically everything else other than bitterness. If you boiled the kit can, you could theoretically replace these hop oils by adding additional flavouring hops (at say 10 mins), but I really don't see the point.

I normally do a boil with the malt, add my hops etc, then add the kit can at flameout. This will still raise it to 90° or so, which effectively sanitises it, without boiling off the good stuff.

[drsmurto]

I just warm the tin in hot water to 'loosen' the contents and then add it to the fermenter after i add the hot malt/hop mixture so in effect, similar to rwh adding it to the pot at flameout.

[rwh]

I only add it to the pot because it's easier to dissolve it in there, rather than all the way down the bottom of the fermenter.

[l'orange]

Yeah, i boiled my first two cans, and it does boil away some of the flavours and aromas. However, that being said, it gives you a cleaner slate to work with if you decide to add your own hops without having to worry about bitterness, as they will already be present.

I know differnet people on this forum like different things, so it's really up to you just depending on what sort of beer your making, and if you want to keep or discard the original flavour/aroma.

[drsmurto]

long arms i have..... or small pot

[Boonie]

long arms i have..... or small pot

Big spoon? ......bragger.