Ridiculous hot break times?

I bought the AHS Murphy's clone (partial mash) and I'm going on 2.5 hours now. I had to add extra water because so much has boiled off, I was afraid it would start burning. No end in sight thus far.

Is this a common thing, or what? I haven't had one yet that lasted more than about 40 minutes, but I'm only on my 8th batch.

mash:
1/4 lb crystal 60L
1/2 lb Chocolate malt
2 1/2 Pale Ale
7 oz Black Roasted Barley

plus:
3 1/4 lb Amber Extract
9 oz corn sugar

Sometimes I never got a hot break with extract- but that's ok because the extract has already been processed. Extract doesn't even really need to boil, except briefly to sanitize it, because it's already been boiled in manufacturing. The boiling time (60 minutes) is for the hops utilization.

I wouldn't boil extract any more than I had to. I'd add the extract with 15 minutes left in the boil to keep in from carmelizing. (See "late extract addition").

If you're adding the extract at the beginning of the boil, don't boil more than 60 minutes total. Steep or mash the grains, then bring that up to a boil. Add the extract, bring to a boil again, add your hops and set the timer for 60 minutes. No need to boil it until a hot break.

No, I mean I can't even get it past a simmer without boiling over.

I'm sorry I don't understand what you are saying. It's not boiling, and then it's boiling over?

Nevermind, it is burned beyond recognition now.

I could not even get it to a boil at all without boiling over. I had it at an extremely low simmer to keep it from boiling over, but that lasted almost 3 hours. I am throwing in the towel.

Bummer dude...

Never brewed extract, dont really understand what happened there...

It would not boil without boiling over?

Yoop is right, extract is boiled, but it is generally boiled at 100-120F... so it can and does benefit from a full boil (see multiple threads here on that).

Id just boil it for 60 mins, or whatever, regardless of the break action, then chill. Next time.

Well, like I said, it was impossible to boil. At least in my 48 qt kettle. The best I could do was an extremely gentle simmer. I guess I should have just barely simmered it and added the hops. That would have probably been preferable to just dumping it out. I figured it would eventually break, but it never did.

My garage smells like burned marshmallows. At least I still have the hops.

That sucks! I'm sorry to hear that it was a dumper for you.

How much wort were you trying to boil?

I can boil over my kegggle with 7.5 gallons in it....

YooperBrew said:

That sucks! I'm sorry to hear that it was a dumper for you.

How much wort were you trying to boil?

Click to expand...

2.5 gallons

2.5 gallons in a 10+ gallon kettle? 48 quarts? And it boiled over? Was it soap and not extract?

Dude, that is freaky

My guess is that you hadn't converted all the starch. What mash temp did you use?

It was an extract brew...

well, I did a partial mash at 160 for 45 min, per the instructions. Sparged a couple quarts or so at 170. I had used AHS instructions with success thus far.

I've made multiple AHS partial mashes with no problems. No soap in the kettle or mash tun.. I washed with Oxy Clean Free and rinsed several times until there are no bubbles in the rinse water. I even rinsed the strainer just for good measure. I am pretty conscious of soap and sanitation and everything. Nothing out of the ordinary. I am completely clueless on this one.

It sucks because I've had so much success thus far. I wish I had made an obvious mistake so I would know how to correct it.