[madscientist]

So I recently had a thought.  I brew on an electric stove in my apartment, so usually when I add extract, I completely remove the kettle from the burner so as not to burn the extract.  I have never used a hop bag and usually just dump the hops in at the specified time.  In a recent batch I used hop bags for the first time (and some leaf hops), and I noticed the beer tasted much cleaner than it has.  So I was wondering if it's possible to burn the hop residue that falls to the bottom of the kettle? 

Thanks

[denny]

So I was wondering if it's possible to burn the hop residue that falls to the bottom of the kettle? 

Thanks

I don't think so.  At least I've never encountered it.

[Jimmy K]

I'm going to guess that millions (billions?) of batches of beer brewed commercially and at home over the past couple hundred years say that you don't need to worry about this.

Extract is very dense and thick, so it drops to the bottom and sits there, coating the bottom. This is not the case with hops.

[tomsawyer]

Maybe your beer tasted cleaner because of lower hop utilization?

[madscientist]

Maybe your beer tasted cleaner because of lower hop utilization?

Maybe.  I also used more DME than LME in this batch.  I usually stick with liquid extract, so even though i thought i wasn't burning it maybe i didn't mix it in as well as I thought I did.