I know this isn't specific to all grain, but that's the type of brewing I'm doing so I'm putting it in this forum. Feel free to move if appropriate.
So I'm having a heck of a time with boil-off. After having some issues on previous brews, I ran a test yesterday. Boiled 9 gallons of water for 30 minutes. My final volume after cooling - 7 gallons!!!!!
I thought I was boiling at a "rolling boil" but I'm thinking it was way to vigorous or something because that seems like a crazy boil-off rate.
The problems all started when I switched from a keggle to a 15gal megapot. The megapots are 19" in diameter so there's a significant increase in surface area there.
I looked up online and the best description for levels of boil I could find was from wikipedia and was as follows:
so what's the right level of boil? i had two weak of a boil (i think) a couple brews back and ended up with crazy chill haze, so i'm trying to find the sweet spot on these kettles so i don't lose 4 gallons an hour!!!
thanks folks for the help.
So I'm having a heck of a time with boil-off. After having some issues on previous brews, I ran a test yesterday. Boiled 9 gallons of water for 30 minutes. My final volume after cooling - 7 gallons!!!!!
I thought I was boiling at a "rolling boil" but I'm thinking it was way to vigorous or something because that seems like a crazy boil-off rate.
The problems all started when I switched from a keggle to a 15gal megapot. The megapots are 19" in diameter so there's a significant increase in surface area there.
I looked up online and the best description for levels of boil I could find was from wikipedia and was as follows:
Levels of boiling
In Chinese cuisine, particularly tea brewing, one distinguishes five stages of boiling: shrimp eyes, the first tiny bubbles that start to appear on the surface of the kettle water, crab eyes, the secondary, larger bubbles, then fish eyes, followed by rope of pearls, and finally raging torrent [rolling boil].
In detail:
- shrimp eyes
about 70-80 °C (155175 °F) separate bubbles, rising to top
- crab eyes
about 80 °C (175 °F) streams of bubbles
- fish eyes
about 80-90 °C (175195 °F) larger bubbles
- rope of pearls
about 90-95 °C (195205 °F) steady streams of large bubbles
- raging torrent
rolling boil, swirling and roiling
so what's the right level of boil? i had two weak of a boil (i think) a couple brews back and ended up with crazy chill haze, so i'm trying to find the sweet spot on these kettles so i don't lose 4 gallons an hour!!!
thanks folks for the help.