Preventing Boil Overs - It's Simple

You can use one of these


or you can just throw a lid from a can of extract in the pot.

I dig the couple-o-pellets idea though.

b

I have a pick-up tube thats about 1/4" from the bottom of my keggle. I could jam SS scrubby under the pick-up.....

I will say that I don't normally have a boil over problem until a few minutes after the first hop addition. I generally watch for a bit then its smooth sailing from there on for me.

My boil is usually a good rolling boil. Promash says my evaporation rate is 18%.

I'm usually only starting with 8 gallons in a 15 gal keggle, so I've got lots of space.

Dr Malt said:

A little trick I have learned is to add about 8 - 12 pellets of my bittering hops just before boil. The hops contain hop oils and as any good beer drinker knows, grease and oil in you beer glass kills foam. So does hop oils in the boil.

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That actually works. I noticed that when I started to add hops before the start of the boil.

and -1 on the Fermcap-S.

Kai

I would rather not just toss some marbles, boiling stones, pennies, or other doo-dads in my brewkettle to avoid boilovers. I have no problem with those things in the kettle, but they only add nucleation sites to avoid superheating the wort. That works fine if you are boiling eggs, crawfish, your neighbor's formerly barking dog, or much of anything else that lifts up your skirt. However, it doesn't help as much with boiling wort.

To effectively avoid a boilover when boiling wort, you really need something to break up the surface tension of that boiling wort. When that hot break starts to come up, it acts like a lid on your kettle, and that's why you really get the boilover. Fermcap-S, hop particles, water sprays, and blowing on the wort surface all break up the surface tension and are much more reliable methods of avoiding a boilover. I'm not saying that marbles, pennies, and other what-nots will not work, but you cannot rely on those things as much.


TL

Here was my ghetto setup from today... worked really well. It was a small battery powered fan that one of my boys got somewhere.

I might try my wife's ceramic pie weights... used when you blind bake a pie crust - they're kind of like rough little ceramic marbles.

Stuart

I went ahead and used some marbles in my pot Sunday afternoon. Right away I noticed that the addition of marbles indeed proves that I need a larger brew kettle.

Although the marbles did seem to give more momentum to the wort when I whirlpooled piling the trub high in the center of the kettle.

How long does a 1oz. bottle of fermcaps last?

Working on a year for mine, I use it in the boil and in the fermenter. Oh, and I spilled 1/2 of it on the floor.

wyzazz said:

Working on a year for mine, I use it in the boil and in the fermenter. Oh, and I spilled 1/2 of it on the floor.

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SOLD

Thank you.

I stir for the first 5 mins, that seems to break up the bubbles. If they get out of hand I just spray them with a spray bottle filled with water.

seanhagerty said:

i have tried putting pennies into the boil kettle with varying luck.

Sean

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Please keep in mind that modern copper pennies are actually zinc with a very thin copper cladding. Scratch it and you have the same as something galvanized in your boil - not good.

I use fermcap-S but lately I've been first Wort Hopping so I haven't needed it at all, with the hops (whole hops in my case) in the wort before boil I don't have any sign of boilovers.

I'm surprised to see that no one has mentioned infant gas drops. 2-3 drops in 12 gallons does the trick!

Edit: Wow, talk about bringing a thread back from the dead...

okgasdude said:

I'm surprised to see that no one has mentioned infant gas drops. 2-3 drops in 12 gallons does the trick!

Edit: Wow, talk about bringing a thread back from the dead...

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I used them before I got a bottle of fermcap. The fermcap is 10x better. The infant drops took a lot more than 3 drops for me.