pfooti
Well-Known Member
I don't know if this has come up in the past, but I posted a thread about it in the beginner forum and received minimal responses. I thought I'd try it here and see if this is one of those "yeah, we all do that", or "no, that's a terrible idea" ideas.
Anyway- my understanding of boilover is that the biggest threat comes right at the start of the boil because that's when hot break proteins are starting to coagulate and they cause the foam to be very stable. Result: the foam does not break down quickly enough and therefore runs over the pot. It is not (in my experience) problems with boil nucleation sites. If it were, the only way to solve the problem would be adding sites (boiling chips, pennies), and there wouldn't be the die-back of boilover after five to ten minutes.
Based on that, I have started a new regimen where I turn the gas off right as my wort gets at the edge of boiling. There's some foam formation, and things are starting to look threatening. I leave the heat off for five to ten minutes (long enough to grab a new beer, read a few pages of my book, or whatever), and then fire the gas back up. During that entire time, hot break proteins are still coagulating, and they've now gotten heavy enough that they don't contribute to the foam anymore, they just sink to the bottom.
The result is: I don't get boilover, and I don't have to worry about "riding" the flame by constantly adjusting the temperature, or picking up the pot, or any of that. I just turn the heat off, wait, turn it back on. The only nervous-making moments are when I throw in the hops, and even then it's just a big rumble rather than a foam geyser.
Anyway- my understanding of boilover is that the biggest threat comes right at the start of the boil because that's when hot break proteins are starting to coagulate and they cause the foam to be very stable. Result: the foam does not break down quickly enough and therefore runs over the pot. It is not (in my experience) problems with boil nucleation sites. If it were, the only way to solve the problem would be adding sites (boiling chips, pennies), and there wouldn't be the die-back of boilover after five to ten minutes.
Based on that, I have started a new regimen where I turn the gas off right as my wort gets at the edge of boiling. There's some foam formation, and things are starting to look threatening. I leave the heat off for five to ten minutes (long enough to grab a new beer, read a few pages of my book, or whatever), and then fire the gas back up. During that entire time, hot break proteins are still coagulating, and they've now gotten heavy enough that they don't contribute to the foam anymore, they just sink to the bottom.
The result is: I don't get boilover, and I don't have to worry about "riding" the flame by constantly adjusting the temperature, or picking up the pot, or any of that. I just turn the heat off, wait, turn it back on. The only nervous-making moments are when I throw in the hops, and even then it's just a big rumble rather than a foam geyser.