One thing I know for certain about brewing a clean tasting, clear beer...
You must have a good, hard, rolling boil. It burns off DMS, it promotes better protein break and make most effective utilization of your hops.
I know it first hand in my beers, and the few micro-breweries I've visited have said the same thing. "If it ain't about to boil over...it ain't boiling hard enough."
Problem is...how to prevent boil overs during a hard 60-90 minute boil. I am not going to stand around squirting water into my kettle every 60 seconds. I can blow on the beer and that helps...but again... 2 or 3 minutes and I'm turning blue.
So last night I decide to let something else take over the job of blowing (pause here for expected BJ reference).
I give you.....the fan.
Simple box fan propped over the head of the keggle...pointed down slightly.
Standing here I could almost smell the DMS being carried away.
You can see how hard this is boiling...but the foam being broken up by the strong current.
Of course I brew in a clean environment and do not have to worry about june bug getting sucked into the fan and dispersed in a thousand parts into my beer.
So if boil overs are a nightmare during your brew process...try becoming a fan of the fan.
You must have a good, hard, rolling boil. It burns off DMS, it promotes better protein break and make most effective utilization of your hops.
I know it first hand in my beers, and the few micro-breweries I've visited have said the same thing. "If it ain't about to boil over...it ain't boiling hard enough."
Problem is...how to prevent boil overs during a hard 60-90 minute boil. I am not going to stand around squirting water into my kettle every 60 seconds. I can blow on the beer and that helps...but again... 2 or 3 minutes and I'm turning blue.
So last night I decide to let something else take over the job of blowing (pause here for expected BJ reference).
I give you.....the fan.
Simple box fan propped over the head of the keggle...pointed down slightly.
Standing here I could almost smell the DMS being carried away.
You can see how hard this is boiling...but the foam being broken up by the strong current.
Of course I brew in a clean environment and do not have to worry about june bug getting sucked into the fan and dispersed in a thousand parts into my beer.
So if boil overs are a nightmare during your brew process...try becoming a fan of the fan.