Massive boil over, loss of 1/4 of wort. What do I do now?

[bigbeerenergy]

Hi all, this is my first time doing a 5 gal boil. Did something stupid (don’t put a lid on your boil) and loss about a quarter of my wort. Pot came off of the boil as the flame got knocked out and I scrambled to clean it up. Placed it back on the fire, got a rolling boil now. Question is, should I continue with my recipe or restart? Planning on using LME at 15 min and topping off with clean water as recipe prescribes. Let me know ASAP as I got to decide soon!!

 

[Johnny_5]

Carry on, it will be fine. Maybe not quite as planned, but it will be beer.

 

[Skeeter686]

Sounds like you're doing a partial boil. You could try scaling the LME and water, if you want to hit target gravity. Otherwise, just let it ride... ABV may be different from recipe, but it'll most likely still be good beer.

Chalk it up to a valuable learning experience.

 

[sibelman]

You simply made less beer than you planned. (And more mess.)

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

Probably too late, but I think you would have wanted to reduce amount of late LME by 1/4, to keep your recipe as close to intended as possible.
What did you end up doing?

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi all, this is my first time doing a 5 gal boil. Did something stupid (don’t put a lid on your boil) and loss about a quarter of my wort. Pot came off of the boil as the flame got knocked out and I scrambled to clean it up. Placed it back on the fire, got a rolling boil now. Question is, should I continue with my recipe or restart? Planning on using LME at 15 min and topping off with clean water as recipe prescribes. Let me know ASAP as I got to decide soon!!

It's always touch and go if you fill your kettle nearly to the top, as most of us tend to do. But, do put the lid on and stick a wooden spoon or a something similar to keep it open a bit. The beer will come to the boil much more quickly with the lid and will require less heat to keep it boiling if the kettle is partly closed.
Two points:
You don't want a fully closed kettle, anyway, as you need to boil off stuff like DMS and other horrors.
You need to watch carefully for when the beer comes to the boil and be ready to turn down the heat and stir until the boil stabilises. It's at this point that dissolved gasses come off and proteins start coagulating, and the pot can foam and froth like mad. Once it's settled down it should be ok, but it still needs watching.

When you can afford it, get a bigger pot. I brew 20 litre batches in a 36 litre pot and that seems to work fine.

 

[Skeeter686]

Some stuff that I do:

Start the pot with the lid on, but with a thermometer probe inside and the alarm set to about 15°F lower than boiling point. This gives me enough warning to remove the lid before the boil actually starts.

Keep a spoon or a spray bottle of water handy. If it starts getting to boil-over point, just turning off the heat won't necessarily stop it soon enough. Stirring the top with the spoon can help to beat down the foam. I find the spray bottle is even more effective. (I think John Palmer mentioned using a spray bottle... thank you, John!)

Ideally, never turn your back on the boil, but the most critical times to watch it are when it first comes to a boil and at hop additions.

Sometimes mistakes actually turn out really well. I had an accident once that threw off my original gravity. I enjoyed the lighter, easy-drinking beer so much that I deliberately brewed it that way several more times.

Edited to specify degrees Fahrenheit

 

[jerrylotto]

Scale down by 25%

 

[An Ankoù]

Sometimes mistakes actually turn out really well. I had an accident once that threw off my original gravity. I enjoyed the lighter, easy-drinking beer so much that I deliberately brewed it that way several more times.

Had a similar experience some years ago. Made a stout planning an OG of 1050. Set the immersion chiller going and went to take the dog for a walk. Came back and the kettle was just beginning to overflow as the chiller had developed a pin-prick hole. Diluting the beer with untreated tapwater didn't spoil it in the least and I ended up with the best batch of mild I'd ever made. I used that recipe for my mild for a few years afterwards. OG was somewhere in the low to mid 30s, by the way.
Moral of the story: Don't leave water in your chiller over winter; it'll freeze and perforate the tube.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

Scale down by 25%

Came here to say the same thing. It sounds smart ass-y, but it's probably the most sound advice.

 

[SFC Rudy]

Use Fermcap S

 

[hotbeer]

I'd have just continued boiling after I cleaned up the mess. Might have considered boiling longer if the lid was on the pot for very long prior to the boil over.

If all your hops and other additions weren't complete, maybe reduce them or maybe not. It'll be beer either way

It's my understanding that the lid is left off to keep undesirable stuff that is carried away along with the steam from condensing and falling back into the wort.

With a 25% loss, your next brew day will just have to be 25% sooner.

Since this is a day old, what did you wind up doing? I don't think there is any one right answer. It's really just a matter of what you prefer to do.

 

[mac_1103]

Use Fermcap S

Shouldn't they call it Boilcap then?

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

If you're really determined to get it right, and you think you can't get the same beer, throw it out and start over. But if you can scale things to get a smaller amount of what you wanted in the first place, having less beer is better than having no beer.