First Burnt Batch..

Well.. I did it.. I burned a batch and after 10 days fermenting away it is dreadful! I transfered it to secondary for dryhopping and took my FG and after a quick taste it has this dreadful burnt grain taste.

I'm using a 2000w HWD and 1500W ulwd element and i only need my 1500W when im boiling to maintain the boil. I do full volume BIAB in a keggle, and yeah it scorched the wort with my 1500W ULWD Element..

I'm not happy but i'm gonna let it sit for a while and see if it is drinkable.. probably wont be, but here's to hoping!

I burnt a batch with a 5500w hwd element from lowes. The cigarette smell NEVER went away. All of that amarillo wasted.

I used the camco 5500w now that everyone else uses.

Are your elements in the bottom of your kettle (rather than in a rims tube)?

I've read some posts that talk about trying to pump liquid too fast and the grain bed can't drain as fast as the liquid is being pulled away from the element. The theory is that this can result in the element being partially dry, thus the scorching.

I don't think mine scorched (possibly because my element is in a rims tube AFTER my pump), but I did notice that if I didn't restrict the flow rate of my pump, that the liquid level seemed to drop in my kettle (could see it in the sight glass tube). The only way this makes sense is if the pump is actually trying to pull liquid in rather than just push it out, so it this theory seems reasonable.

I do not have a rims setup, just 2 elements directly in my keggle.

Hmmm, watching your thread as I just used an element to assist in brewing for the first time yesterday. I thought the boil was a bit brisk and praying I didn't scorch it too!
Hope yours turns out!
Robert

The only reason i was able to tell i scorched it was the STRONG burning smell while i was brewing. I was in the other room and didnt catch it quick enough i guess.. But i was able to switch over to my other element and I hoped it would fix it.. 10 days later it tastes like cigarette ash.. so yeah.. live and learn i guess

Dam your scaring me, im about to do my first 12 gal boil with a 3000w camco 02263 HWD element as the primary boil element. I hope i don't have the same issue. Are your two elements close to each other? Is it possible the boiling bubbles went over the other hot element? What style of beer was it?

I use a 5500w HD element in my BK and have never had scorching, so not everyone experiences it. Have brewed light ales, lagers, lots of centennial blond, where even slight scorching would be noticed.

However, once I reach a rolling boil, I usually throttle back the element to 75% (0.75 seconds on, 0.25s off, every 1 s) using a BCS controller.

I have popped hd elements and burnt wort with hd elements. Some people use them and have no problems but they don't work for me. I stay away from them now and only use ulwd ones.

I have scorched an element twice but only figured it out after the fact and it never was noticeable in the beer. Both batches were with 4500 watt elements - one the ULWD ripp element and one with a LWD element. Both times the elements were not completely clean. Keeping your element clean is an imperative to prevent scorching.

Is CIP sufficient to prevent scorching?

I use a clean in place system to clean my 55 gallon boil kettle. The elements are essentially soaked (totally immersed) for 30 min in hot PBW. This does not come close to getting the debris off the elements. I hand scrub them with a 3M green pad. The 30 min soak makes that process much easier. In my experience, if you don't get them completely clean, you are just begging for a scorched element. YMMV.

stevehaun said:

I use a clean in place system to clean my 55 gallon boil kettle. The elements are essentially soaked (totally immersed) for 30 min in hot PBW. This does not come close to getting the debris off the elements. I hand scrub them with a 3M green pad. The 30 min soak makes that process much easier. In my experience, if you don't get them completely clean, you are just begging for a scorched element. YMMV.

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Yeah, i just tasted the second batch I had made that weekend after I took a wire brush to my scorched element.. it appears there is a very slight scorched taste.. it might be ok in 3 weeks or so but i'm going to have to take off that element and do a nice long soak and clean.

I scorched the hell out of one batch using HWD 2000w elements where I paused the brew session pre-boil and all the trub concentrated around the elements. In my experience, the scorching begins during the ramp up to boil when the wort is not moving and the trub settles around the elements. Simply a few good stirs during this time will suspend the trub such that the elements are not heating in heavily trub laden stagnant wort. Keeping elements CLEAN will also help to minimize protien buildup.

Unfortunately I don't think the burnt taste will go away at all! but rather become more pronounced as the beer clears and cleans up.

Interestingly my only burnt batch was also a BIAB, perhps the greater amount of trub led to the problem as well. It's the protien that burns, not the sugars, so I believe if you try and keep the trub suspended it will help to eliminate the scorching.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/major-scorching-2000w-hwd-elements-339620/