Hot break question

I just brewed my second batch ever, a Rogue Dead Guy clone, yesterday and it's lack of vigorous hot break had me pondered.

My very first brew used 3.3 lb LME and 3 lb DME and the hot break was quite vigorous requiring removing the pot from heat quite a few times. In this clone, I only used LME and there was barely any foaming, I didn't even need to kill the heat once.

Is this a general phenomenon? I was thinking that with the DME, there are more undissolved solids floating around creating more nucleation sites for the boil. Or this is just asstalk and I'm clueless. Any thoughts?

You're fine. I don't get much hot break from extract ever.

all grain, you get a lot of hot break.

To knock down the hot break foam I use a spray bottle with sterile water. One of those pump the top to build up pressure style sprayers that you get to do small poison sprays on plants. Works extremely well!

Do you think this is safe? With an hour left of boil I imagine any contaminants would quickly die.

Yes, you are definitely safe spraying the boil. This is what I do as well, except I use a spray bottle bought from Walgreen's similar to a Windex bottle. Boiling water will sterilize everything for you, including the water you spray on top, no need to use pre-sterilized water.

I have found that hot-break will vary greatly between recipes.

malkore said:

You're fine. I don't get much hot break from extract ever.

all grain, you get a lot of hot break.

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Weird, I've noticed the exact opposite. Tons of "hot break" (aka foam/potential boil over) with full boil extract, but in my first 3 AG batches, I didn't even have to use the spray bottle.

when I was doing the Extract batches The LME would not hot break at all, but when I dumped the DME in....It about exploded out of the kettle I had to start adding the DME when with the heat off.

i just did a SNPA clone this last weekend and was using LME. my experience sounds the same as yours. i had a real thin layer of foam, but for the most part i didnt get to experience a crazy hot break.

when I was doing the Extract batches The LME would not hot break at all, but when I dumped the DME in....It about exploded out of the kettle I had to start adding the DME when with the heat off.

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This is helping out my theory of DME increasing nucleation sites in the boil. I think it makes sense that the more particles there are, the more water vapor can surround them and increase bubble formation. Plus I bet the surface tension is quite different once you add the extract, before it has a chance to fully dissolve. I am sure there are several factors involved in why the hot break boils so vigorously, but I am curious if it happens more with DME than LME.

dpt222 said:

This is helping out my theory of DME increasing nucleation sites in the boil. I think it makes sense that the more particles there are, the more water vapor can surround them and increase bubble formation. Plus I bet the surface tension is quite different once you add the extract, before it has a chance to fully dissolve. I am sure there are several factors involved in why the hot break boils so vigorously, but I am curious if it happens more with DME than LME.

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You're absolutely right, and my experience corroborates your theory.