Boiling too hot?

Hello,
Been homebrewing about 9 months and I'm slowly but surely refining the process. I tried to do a clone recipe for an oatmeal chocolate stout, and my mash went perfectly (my first great mash actually), only to be perfectly ruined when my boil when horribly.

1) Collected 7 gallons of wort
2) started my propane burner up with a high setting
3) started the 120 min boil as instructed
4) had a boil over or two (my bad), but nothing significant
5) at the end of the boil I had maybe ... 1 gallon of wort?

What did I do wrong? Did I boil it too hot? The boil never really ever calmed down, it stayed very bubbly if you will, which I suspect suggests what the issue was.

Any help? I'm still learning how to properly use my burner.

Cheers,
Rob

you boiled 7 gallons down to 1 in 90 minutes? Wow!

First, off, you were probably boiling a little too hard. I crank my burner to get it up to boiling. As soon as I hit a rolling boil, I back off. You don't want wort literally jumping out of the pot. It needs to be boiling, but nothing crazy. Also, unless your beer contains a lot of pilsner malt, you can boil for 60 min. Just make sure you calculate in less boil off. Programs like Beersmith can help you figure that out.

I'm still kind of curious how you boiled off 6 gallons in 90 minutes. Sure you didn't spill or boilover too much?

I'm not sure...The only thing I could suggest is that the boil does not have to be a rolling boil. Just a nice small bubbly.

it would be tough to boil off 3 gallons per hour, but i suppose anything is possible. it definitely sounds like the burner was too high if you were getting lots of foamy bubbles... it took me a few boils to realize that i only need to run my burner at about 10% to maintain the boil once I get it going with the burner at full bore... evaporation was one of my biggest challenges, but i think i finally have it figured out. i guess with the 2 boilovers and hardcore boil, you just rocked it... out of curiosity, what was the SG of that 1 gallon you had left?

Wow- to go from 7 gallons to 1 is a bit much. A 120 minute boil probably didn't help! I rarely boil more than 60 minutes, unless I have way too much wort to boil down.

You want a nice rolling boil. If it's too hard, you'll boil off more wort, but I've never heard of boiling off 6 gallons! Usually, most people will boil off about 1.25 gallons/hour.

Yeah, your burner was too high. Turn it down. I also partially cover my brewpot so some of the steam condenses on the lid and drops back into the wort. I typically will boil about 6-7 gallons down to 5 in 90 minutes.

daveooph131 said:

I'm not sure...The only thing I could suggest is that the boil does not have to be a rolling boil. Just a nice small bubbly.

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"Small bubbly" doesn't cut it! You need a rolling boil for proper isomerization of the hops oils. A rolling boil means that the bubbles roll to the surface, and break, and start again. Bigger than a simmer.

Edcculus said:

Also, unless your beer contains a lot of pilsner malt, you can boil for 60 min. Just make sure you calculate in less boil off. Programs like Beersmith can help you figure that out.

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It was about 9 pounds of 2 row for the base malts, and the 120 minute was from the clone recipe I found in "How to Brews" collection of clones. I figured I'd just roll with it. That said the hops weren't supposed to go in until 60 minutes in, so I'm guessing the first 60 min are intended for reduction.

YooperBrew said:

"Small bubbly" doesn't cut it! You need a rolling boil for proper isomerization of the hops oils. A rolling boil means that the bubbles roll to the surface, and break, and start again. Bigger than a simmer.

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How can I NOT listen to Red Green? Thanks.

the8bitdeity said:

How can I NOT listen to Red Green? Thanks.

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Wanna borrow my duct tape?

It's a 60K BTU propane burner I used, and probably at about full throttle.

hercher said:

Yeah, your burner was too high. Turn it down. I also partially cover my brewpot so some of the steam condenses on the lid and drops back into the wort. I typically will boil about 6-7 gallons down to 5 in 90 minutes.

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It's really best not to put a lid on during the boil. You need the steam to drive away the dimethylsulfide in the wort. Unless you're brewing with extract, in which case it's not as big a deal since almost all the DMS has already been driven off during the manufacture of the extract.

android said:

it would be tough to boil off 3 gallons per hour, but i suppose anything is possible. it definitely sounds like the burner was too high if you were getting lots of foamy bubbles... it took me a few boils to realize that i only need to run my burner at about 10% to maintain the boil once I get it going with the burner at full bore... evaporation was one of my biggest challenges, but i think i finally have it figured out. i guess with the 2 boilovers and hardcore boil, you just rocked it... out of curiosity, what was the SG of that 1 gallon you had left?

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I was too frustrated to even both measuring. I just dumped it in disgust.

Wait a minute. You started with 7 gallons and ended up with only 1? So, you're saying you lost 6 gallons to boil overs and evaporation? Considering you usually lose about 1 to 1.5 gallons per hour an hour to evaporation during the boil, that still means you lost about 3-4 gallons or so somewhere.

I'm sure the boil overs lost some of the wort, but not 4 gallons worth unless you were completely out of control and wort was flying out of your pot like a volcano. Otherwise you could have been just doing a raging boil the whole time and a lot was being lost to evaporation. But still, losing 2+ gallons an hour to evaporation is a lot, so if that truly was the case, then yes you're boiling too hard. But otherwise, I'd make sure you didn't underestimate how much you lost when it boiled over, because you can lose a gallon real quick if you aren't paying attention.

EDIT: Wow, there were already about 10 replies while I was typing this. Lots of repeat info, sorry for being slow

I’m still waiting for someone to catch a typo, 7 gallons down to 1 seems quite impossible even with two small boilovers.

oh its possible.....heres how I did it.



Yes...that IS a thruster from the space shuttle.

android said:

you just rocked it... out of curiosity, what was the SG of that 1 gallon you had left?

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You think you could test that with a brewers hydrometer? How about a Rockwell hardness tester?