Ok, first a bit of background:
This is my first time doing AG brew. I've read a ton on this site and have been working on an electric BIAB keggle for the last 6 months. I got the element enclosures from brewhardware.com and all the other fittings and mesh bag from ontariobeerkegs.com. The kettle has 2 2000W elements that are regular high watt density which I was hoping was ok. I put 2, 20A GFCI outlets in my garage and on the test boils everything seemed to be working smoothly.
I did 2 extract brews which are not finished fermenting yet but everything went well and they look and smell good so far. We don't have any control on the elements, we are just plugging and unplugging them, but both on 100% seems to give a decent boil rate (about 1 gallon / hr or so). So...
Last night I finally started my first AG brew. I went with Ed Wort's "Haus Pale Ale" because it had a very simple grain bill and I wanted something straight forward to start with. I ground the grains very fine and the mash seemed to go well, although the sleeping bag method seemed to lose more heat that others have suggested it would (we lifted the bag and reheated 2 X over the mash). I don't have a good measure of efficiency yet, but the gravity afterwards was over 1.050.
The problem started at about 15 min left in the boil when we could smell a burnt smell. Then after chilling and transferring we could see that there was a layer of burnt material on the elements. I guess it is the tiny bits of grain that made it through the bag and eventually stuck to the element and burned during the boil.
So the question is, what did we do wrong? Is the HWD element a bad choice? Did we grind the grain too fine? Do I need a power control on the elements? How can I fix this problem?
Here is a picture of the kettle after the brew. The wort tastes very slightly burnt (hard to tell actually) but I'm guessing it's no good. I pitched anyway, but am a bit bummed about it, but more importantly have to get this fixed for next time.
This is my first time doing AG brew. I've read a ton on this site and have been working on an electric BIAB keggle for the last 6 months. I got the element enclosures from brewhardware.com and all the other fittings and mesh bag from ontariobeerkegs.com. The kettle has 2 2000W elements that are regular high watt density which I was hoping was ok. I put 2, 20A GFCI outlets in my garage and on the test boils everything seemed to be working smoothly.
I did 2 extract brews which are not finished fermenting yet but everything went well and they look and smell good so far. We don't have any control on the elements, we are just plugging and unplugging them, but both on 100% seems to give a decent boil rate (about 1 gallon / hr or so). So...
Last night I finally started my first AG brew. I went with Ed Wort's "Haus Pale Ale" because it had a very simple grain bill and I wanted something straight forward to start with. I ground the grains very fine and the mash seemed to go well, although the sleeping bag method seemed to lose more heat that others have suggested it would (we lifted the bag and reheated 2 X over the mash). I don't have a good measure of efficiency yet, but the gravity afterwards was over 1.050.
The problem started at about 15 min left in the boil when we could smell a burnt smell. Then after chilling and transferring we could see that there was a layer of burnt material on the elements. I guess it is the tiny bits of grain that made it through the bag and eventually stuck to the element and burned during the boil.
So the question is, what did we do wrong? Is the HWD element a bad choice? Did we grind the grain too fine? Do I need a power control on the elements? How can I fix this problem?
Here is a picture of the kettle after the brew. The wort tastes very slightly burnt (hard to tell actually) but I'm guessing it's no good. I pitched anyway, but am a bit bummed about it, but more importantly have to get this fixed for next time.