BolgBeorach
Active Member
I currently use a Peco boiler (so a 2.4kw element in a bucket, essentially) to do BIAB, and it has worked fine so far for all of my brews - except the latest one. I tried brewing a Bavarian Weissbier a week and a half ago, and despite stirring consistently in the lead-up to the boil, when I emptied the wort into my fermenter, I saw that the element was black with a thick layer of charred proteins and other detritus that had settled to the bottom. I couldn't really tell at the time whether I was imagining the burnt taste to the wort, so I went ahead and pitched some yeast anyway, although I was not very hopeful. As expected, I tasted the beer yesterday and it was vile, like an ashtray. I'm pretty disappointed about losing the batch, but I'll be more disappointed if it turns out I simply can't use the boiler to make wheat beers. Has anyone had this issue before and found a workaround? I'm considering simply decanting the wort into another vessel after the mash, clearing the protein gunk out of the bottom of the boiler, and re-adding the wort again to boil, in the hopes that it might remove the majority of the material that would char. However, I am guessing that there might still be a lot of the stuff floating around anyway in the rest of the wort, and my attempt may be futile.
