I was called away just as the kettle was on the verge of boiling. I turned the flame down to the lowest level that a small gust of wind could not extinguish, put the lid on the kettle, and asked my lovely wife to keep an eye on the flame for me while I was gone.
Thusly I figured to kill two birds with one stone by preventing infection and drastically reducing the time needed to re-catch the boil upon my return. Normally I lose the boil when I set the flame this low so I anticipated that the flame would hold the wort in the neighborhood of 165° or above. Perfect to keep the wort from souring and allow an easy re-acquisition of boil temps later . . . right?
Four hours later . . . returned to find that the whole volume of wort had been holding at a low boil for the duration of my absence. I proceeded to remove the lid, add the bittering hops, infuse 1.7 L of boiling water to replace the boil-off, and continue with the planned boil schedule.
I expect the final product will be darker in color, possibly have more body, a more pronounced caramel flavor, and perhaps slightly higher FG due to the unfermentable sugars created by carmelization. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one hour of open boiling was long enough to boil off all the DMS created during the previous four hours of lid-on boiling. I'll let you know . . .
Technical Details:
Beer Recipator Recipe
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