Scorched spot in bottom of boil kettle!

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freebird

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Was making a kit brew the other night (LD Carlson / Brewer's Best German Altbier Style); and I steeped the grain in 2 gal of water. Added that water and 2 more gal to the 30 qt. pot on the outside burner. Temp probably 140 when I added a can of light ME, and a can of amber and some more water. Stirred them up well or so I thought...

Went on about the boil. After cooling when I racked it out (5.5 gal total boil, boiled down to 5), I find an irregular burnt / scorched spot in the bottom of the pot :( :( It's about 4 x 5" (like a couple fried eggs :drunk: )

It don't look like the flame pattern, methinks that some ME pooled up or something.

Anyhow, I went ahead and primaried the stuff. Should I dump it?
 
Yet another good post that illustrates a reason to move to DME. The liquid tends to do exactly what you described if you are not vigilant in your stirring. You didn't say exactly how scorched your pot was and you already took the time to primary it and pitch your yeast. I'd say let it ferment in your primary and do a taste test going into the secondary. You may end up with a "smoked" beer.


Let it ride!

;)
 
The ale should okay. I've had a few chars over the years and they haven't made much difference. I always add the LME with the burner off or mix the LME and hot water in a seperate pot then add it to the kettle. With DME the undissolved lumps tend to float where you can see them.
 
You will be fine. In fact, you may have added a caramelly sweetness that will increase the complexity of your beer. One very old tradition of brewing is to heat up large stones in a fire and then put these stones into the wort to create the boil. This process scorches the sugars against the rocks which creates a deep caramel sweetness in your beer.

If the caramel is too strong in this one, tell everyone who drinks it that you were brewing an historic beer :p :D
 
That's why you should turn off the heat and dissolve all malts before putting it back onto a flame.

Sounds like it'll be OK though.

We all have some carmelization going on in our pots, but I've noticed that when I make mead and boil the honey they disappear. Honestly.:D
 
homebrewer_99 said:
That's why you should turn off the heat and dissolve all malts before putting it back onto a flame.

aye, aye....

All the "kits" we've done have had only light malt extract until now; this one had a can of amber. Done the same method before without this problem - added cool water to 170 steeping water (with a little bottom heat going) and stirred vigorously until the wort was consistent in color - maybe the amber (or was it dark?) extract didn't dissolve as well as we thunk?

Hell, though, the first two batches of AG that we did (reverting back to kits for time purposes!) are almost gone, faster than the kits / extract brews, guess we just better stick to that! <hic> :drunk:

now whadda we do if'n this is the best we've made yet???
 
I used to have the same thing happen before I switched to a heavier bottom brew pot. I think the thin or "Tinny" one will burn easy.
 
I charred the crap out of my brew kettle on the brew before my last, which was an imperial stout. The stout turned out fantastic, so I wouldn't worry too much (of coarse stouts, especially imperial stouts will mask a lot of cruddy flavors, but I tried hard and I couldn't detect any burnt flavor in there)
 
This happened to me once and the beer turned out fine.

I was in a real panic about how I would get the stain off the bottom. I scrubbed for quite awhile and then I gave up, leaving the pot upside down to dry. My wife and I were watching TV that afternoon and started hearing an echoey crackling sound.

After several minutes of trying to locate the source, I flipped th pot over to find that the stain had crackled off on its own in roughly 2 pieces. There is no longer any evidence of the scorch and the pieces were auctioned off on ebay because they formed an image of the Virgin Mary.

Just kidding about the Mary thing. All else is true. Freaky!
 
olllllo said:
This happened to me once and the beer turned out fine.

I was in a real panic about how I would get the stain off the bottom. I scrubbed for quite awhile and then I gave up, leaving the pot upside down to dry. My wife and I were watching TV that afternoon and started hearing an echoey crackling sound.

After several minutes of trying to locate the source, I flipped th pot over to find that the stain had crackled off on its own in roughly 2 pieces. There is no longer any evidence of the scorch and the pieces were auctioned off on ebay because they formed an image of the Virgin Mary.

Just kidding about the Mary thing. All else is true. Freaky!

I've noticed that my scorches will sometimes come off when the pot is dry as well. Yeah, freaky!
 
I am fairly new to the home brewing world, but spend a bit of time in the kitchen. I would say to avoid the scortch a nice thick pot is the key. When i opened my first kit about 4 months ago i had no idea what i was going to boil in. I searched all around my house and found a 40 some quart pressure cooker that i had not opend yet due to the fact i moved the summer before and as such had no garden to can veggies from. I used that giant S.Steel pot and have had no problem at all which i am attributing to its thickness.
 
Reverend JC said:
I am fairly new to the home brewing world, but spend a bit of time in the kitchen. I would say to avoid the scortch a nice thick pot is the key. When i opened my first kit about 4 months ago i had no idea what i was going to boil in. I searched all around my house and found a 40 some quart pressure cooker that i had not opend yet due to the fact i moved the summer before and as such had no garden to can veggies from. I used that giant S.Steel pot and have had no problem at all which i am attributing to its thickness.

yup i blame the kettle. Ive got a s/s with a sandwhiched bottom that more evenly distributes heat.
 
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