Wont only adding half of the extract at the beginning of of your boil throw your hop bitterness off drastically? i was under the impression that extract brewing required something like 3* the hops because of sugar concentration during the boil. Do you adjust for this or does it just work itself out?
That's the point of putting in half the extract later -- lower the sugar concentration during the boil to "normal" levels so that hop utilization occurs at the same rate as it would with a full volume boil.
. . . hop utilization, color development, melanoidin formation, and whatever other mojo happens in the boil. The concept is to provide boil conditions that mimic a full volume boil as closely as possible.
. . .all that being said, does it become a problem to interrupt the boil? by the time i drop in my IC and add another 3ish pounds of extract, my wort temp has dropped 15-20 degrees. should i return it to boiling before i continue my hop timers? or just continue on business as usual?
I haven’t found a brilliant way to do the late extract additions. I’ve found that it’s possible to maintain the boil if you add extract a little at a time near the end. Like adding LME slowly, stirring constantly over the last 10-15 minutes. Too much work for me, and I worry about scorching. Same with DME which seems to have less temperature impact, but it clumps like crazy, so lots of stirring, aka
work.
I’d suggest whatever feels best to you, and to repeat the same thing for a few batches. Then if you think you’re consistently not getting enuf hop goodness (or too much), adjust up (or down) until you find a sweet spot for your process.
Personally, I do mostly malt forward beers that don’t have big hop charges at the end. I add flameout hops (if there are any), add extract, and go to cooling. On the few occasions I use a bunch of late addition hops, I’ll add extract, bring back to boil, add flameout hops, cool. Both ways seem to work ok.