Has any one tried boiloing over an open fire?

While I was boiling my first brew last saturday, I was watching my neighbor burn leaves. Started thinking hard hard it would be to boil over a fire and control the temp. But our forefathers had to do it, so it can be done. Has anybody tried it??

I've thought about it, no idea how easy it would actually be. Seems like it would be a really fun Halloween-ish activity with some friends. Brewing a smoked beer would be rather appropriate.

yea it might take on some of the smokiness from the fire.

You could do it, but temp control would be an issue.

I've got an old wood fire cook stove. It's got an oven and you can cook on top.
To bake in one of these old things you need to control the size of the fire, keep it fed and use the damper.

I think you would need something setup like that. A fire box with a damper and a cooking surface.
To me, the brew day is long enough without that.

People have done this. It's also popular to use riverbed stone that you put in the fire. When they are super hot you plop them in to the wort. It's supposed to boil it and add some caramelization. A friend of mine did it. He said the biggest draw back was having to constantly remove and add rocks to keep the boil going for an hour. It still sounds like a fun experiment, though. Maybe a smaller batch would work better...

people have made beer this way for thousands of years. truly old school.

its probably easiest to control the temp by moving red hot coals from the fire to under the kettle

porto88 said:

its probably easiest to control the temp by moving red hot coals from the fire to under the kettle

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That's what I was thinking, or just use some charcoal.

A guy local to me does brewing demos at the renaissance fair when it comes through here. I haven't seen him do it, but I know it involves a wood fire.

I believe using the hot stones into the pot is called stein beer.

I was wondering if charcoal would be easier. When our son was in Scouts we did a lot of Dutch oven cooking. If I remember right. 1 bricket was good for 25 degrees.

cheesehed007 said:

I was wondering if charcoal would be easier. When our son was in Scouts we did a lot of Dutch oven cooking. If I remember right. 1 bricket was good for 25 degrees.

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Depends if the briquet was on top or bottom of the Dutch oven. I can't remember specifics though.

jeepinjeepin said:

Depends if the briquet was on top or bottom of the Dutch oven. I can't remember specifics though.

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The way we did it was to put half on top and the other half under. Been awhile since we cooked like that. Might have o do it next time we boil....

khugs21 said:

yea it might take on some of the smokiness from the fire.

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Did a maple syrup boil over an open wood fire years ago. Very smokey and hard to control the boil.

bosco

cheesehed007 said:

The way we did it was to put half on top and the other half under. Been awhile since we cooked like that. Might have o do it next time we boil....

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I looked it up. Looks to be several good ways to do it. Ring around the bottom and double that number on top. Diameter -3 on bottom, +3 on top. Moving one to or from the top is +/- 25F. Do you take it away or put it underneath?

Seems to me the easiest way to control the heat isn't by adding coals but rather by setting up a kettle on a chain rack so you can raise and lower the kettle for higher or lower temps. This way stoking the fire if needed wouldn't be an issue either.

so our LHBS just had a huge brew day. 14 different clubs involved, and the LHBS donated/is housing a barrel for each group (that the brew went into). All of these will be for consumption during NHC 2013. One of the clubs that showed up boiled over an open fire. Stood around chanting and stuff. Pretty cool, definitly different. They had an assload of firewood to keep that sucker hot enough. I was too busy with our own brew to really check theirs out. There are some pics of it in here: http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/photo-gallery/photos/photos-from-keystone-homebrew-supplys-events/2012-barrel-brew/