Negative effects of a 210 degree F boil ??

Does anyone know if performing a boil at 210 degrees F, as opposed to a vigorous 212 degree F boil, would produce any negative effects? At 210 F, my 1.050 gravity wort "boils", but not very vigorously. The most powerful burner on my range simply won't heat 3 gallons of wort above 210 F, even using an All-Clad boil pot with two inches of reflective insulation around the sides.

It would surprise me if the additional 2 degrees would make any significant difference in terms of achieving the goals that a boil is supposed to accomplish, such as wort sterilization, protein-tannin binding, alpha-acid isomerization, DMS volatization, wort concentration, etc. However, I want to confirm this assumption. I guess it does seem possible that, due to the less vigorous boil, there would be fewer protein-tannin collisions, and, due to the reduced amounts of steam, DMS could be volatized and whisked away less efficiently. But I would think that a slighly longer boil would compensate for these potential issues. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Shaun

Water boils at different temperatures when at different elevations. So I wouldn't think that those in Denver(where water boils at 203*F) or even higher elevations around the world would do anything differently to make their beer. But's that's just my guess. The additional agitation from the full boil may affect the beer in a way I'm not aware of.

DMS would be the biggest risk, but if you didn't cover the boil pot at any point, gave the wort a bit longer to boil and dropped the temp below 140 quickly, you should be okay.

Yeah, good point. As you said, if people in Denver achieve vigorous boils at 210 degrees F or lower, then clearly there can't be any significant difference between 210 F and 212 F in terms of the effects of TEMPERATURE itself.

But maybe the agitation of a vigorous boil facilitates the interaction between the different components of the wort, such as the collision of proteins and tannins that produces hot break. And a vigorous boil also produces more steam, which would imply better aroma volatization.

I wonder if constantly stirring the wort would help compensate for the lack of natural "boil" agitation ??

Does your boil achieve hot break? If so, you're fine.

stoutaholic said:

Yeah, good point. As you said, if people in Denver achieve vigorous boils at 210 degrees F

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Good luck getting wort up to 210 at this elevation - I can get a boil at 202 on a good day. I've had distilled water boil on me in the lab at 198 before.

All that said, I don't do anything diffferent to compensate, as long as there is movement in the pot

Jim Karr said:

Does your boil achieve hot break? If so, you're fine.

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And if not... what? [I ask, as I had this happen on my second batch, which is now stuck at 1.019, down from an OG of 1.041. I got a light rolling boil, but never did see the hot break.].

BioBeing said:

And if not... what? [I ask, as I had this happen on my second batch, which is now stuck at 1.019, down from an OG of 1.041. I got a light rolling boil, but never did see the hot break.].

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you'll have cloudy beer that will never clear.



But speaking of boiling at a lower temperature, I've always wanted to put the boil pot under a vacuum to make it boil at ~150F. This way I could convert starches while decocting!

At normal barometric pressure, if you are boiling anywhere with an elevation over 900ft., your boiling point will be at or below 210F.

Since many people use boil=212 to calibrate their thermometers, I have a feeling many people have thermometers that are calibrated wrong.

BioBeing said:

And if not... what? [I ask, as I had this happen on my second batch, which is now stuck at 1.019, down from an OG of 1.041. I got a light rolling boil, but never did see the hot break.].

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If you are brewing with extract, it is possible that you will see little to no hot break.

I boil at 210... that is as far as it will go. According to my PID.

z987k said:

you'll have cloudy beer that will never clear.

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Beerrific said:

If you are brewing with extract, it is possible that you will see little to no hot break.

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I can live with cloudy, as long as it is drinkable!

I was doing an extract with late addition of half the LME. I think I read in Joy of Brewing last night though that failure to hot break can lead to reduced fermentables: too many or not enough polyphenolics? He didn't really spell it out. [But I think my main problem is that I underpitched my yeast (which I am growing up to re-pitch anyway).]

As a rough guide..
also assuming standard pressure
While at sea level the boiling point of water is 212° Fahrenheit, for ever 500-foot increase in elevation, the boiling point drops one degree.

Poor DMS removal is probably the biggest potential problem, just because you don't have a rolling boil. Isomerization does drop off with temperature, but anything over 190F is still ok.

The Pol said:

I boil at 210... that is as far as it will go. According to my PID.

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+1. Either it boils, or it doesn't. I could be rusty on my chemistry, but unless you tweak the pressure, you won't be able to raise the temp past boiling....it will just change phase faster depending on how much heat is transferred to the wort.

I prefer to do a gentle boil over a violent boil....just because I like to limit evaporative loss.....

eie in michigan my wort boils in between 209 and 210 so i set my thermometers temp alarm to 208 and am there when the pot starts to boil.



course my old dial thermometer read 225+at boil

with all the sugar in the wort it should raise the boiling temp a bit over just water.

Just like when you're making candy sugar.

Ahoy hoy,
Up here in the interior of Alaska, if i have to boil on the stove it runs at about 210.7 or so. Not as rolling as I like, but enough after a 90 minute boil to do the trick. FYI
Until the next time....

The one time I did not have a vig boil my brew came out very watered down. Not sure if that was the problem but . . . . . . it's the only thing I can figure.