Hi Homebrewers. Short time lurker, first time poster.
I have a couple drinkable brews under my belt now and thought I'd try to make a trappist ale from a local homebrew shop's kit. For whatever reason, I'm under the impression that more heat during the boil is a good thing (is it?) so I cranked my burner up much higher than I normally do.
The immediate impact was me fighting foam for the entire boil. I started with 6 gallons in a 10 gallon pot. While not fun to deal with, I thought foam was an indicator of a hot break and so this was 1. a good thing and 2. it would go away eventually without my intervention. Did I just make more work for myself by keeping the heat so high or is that much foam consistent with a high gravity ale?
Also, I was aiming for a FG of 1.074 and ended up with 1.097 measured @80 degrees. I'm guessing this was primarily because I boiled off a gallon more water than I wanted, leaving me with 4 gallons of stronger beer. I made a yeast starter so I figured I could handle the higher gravity. Would I have been better off topping off the beer with water during the last few minutes of the boil? How late would be too late to do this? Would it have been OK to boil water, let it cool, and then add it to the bucket within 24 hours of pitching? How do you guys handle this?
I have a couple drinkable brews under my belt now and thought I'd try to make a trappist ale from a local homebrew shop's kit. For whatever reason, I'm under the impression that more heat during the boil is a good thing (is it?) so I cranked my burner up much higher than I normally do.
The immediate impact was me fighting foam for the entire boil. I started with 6 gallons in a 10 gallon pot. While not fun to deal with, I thought foam was an indicator of a hot break and so this was 1. a good thing and 2. it would go away eventually without my intervention. Did I just make more work for myself by keeping the heat so high or is that much foam consistent with a high gravity ale?
Also, I was aiming for a FG of 1.074 and ended up with 1.097 measured @80 degrees. I'm guessing this was primarily because I boiled off a gallon more water than I wanted, leaving me with 4 gallons of stronger beer. I made a yeast starter so I figured I could handle the higher gravity. Would I have been better off topping off the beer with water during the last few minutes of the boil? How late would be too late to do this? Would it have been OK to boil water, let it cool, and then add it to the bucket within 24 hours of pitching? How do you guys handle this?
