Boil Kettle Issue: BeerSmith Related

[divrguy]

I'll be finding out soon...hopefully don't have to fork out for a big time expensive kettle

Bro, you have Beersmith! Just scale it down! Or as previously mentioned.. Top up!! ...or maybe you want to buy a bigger kettle! Lol

 

[johngault007]

I'll be finding out soon...hopefully don't have to fork out for a big time expensive kettle

I would really love to see this setup in action. I do full 10 gallon AG boils in my 15 gallon Bayou Classic and have never gone over 12-12.5 gallons for a single batch. I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong, quite the contrary, every system is different, and there might lie the issue. That system may be the wrong setup for what you are trying to accomplish.

I hope the reduced boil amount works for you. Everyone deserves to have painless brew days.

 

[BVilleggiante]

So I think I just found some more space I can save. BeerSmith had my cooling evaporation rate set at 4% which is a half gallon. I have a plate chiller which chills my wort down to 70 in about 15 minutes so there is now way I'm loosing a half gallon in that time. I just set the chilling evaporation rate to 0% since it will most likely be such a tiny amount if any.

 

[BVilleggiante]

I've attached a link to the setup I have here:

http://morebeer.com/view_product/8920//New_2100_BrewSculpture

The problem I believe is that these kettles are wider than any kettle I've ever seen before thus allowing for more surface area and thus more boil off and a greater volume left at the bottom of the kettles after transfering. If they were narrower and taller it wouldn't be so extreme.

I would really love to see this setup in action. I do full 10 gallon AG boils in my 15 gallon Bayou Classic and have never gone over 12-12.5 gallons for a single batch. I'm not saying you are doing anything wrong, quite the contrary, every system is different, and there might lie the issue. That system may be the wrong setup for what you are trying to accomplish.

I hope the reduced boil amount works for you. Everyone deserves to have painless brew days.

 

[chickypad]

So I think I just found some more space I can save. BeerSmith had my cooling evaporation rate set at 4% which is a half gallon. I have a plate chiller which chills my wort down to 70 in about 15 minutes so there is now way I'm loosing a half gallon in that time. I just set the chilling evaporation rate to 0% since it will most likely be such a tiny amount if any.

The cooling loss isn't evaporation, it's a function of temperature (liquid expands at higher temp). Chilling from boiling to room temp gives about 4% contraction of volume.

The problem I believe is that these kettles are wider than any kettle I've ever seen before thus allowing for more surface area and thus more boil off and a greater volume left at the bottom of the kettles after transfering. If they were narrower and taller it wouldn't be so extreme.

Those kettles are quite wide for the volume. I have that same sculpture with 15 gal mash tun and HLT but I got it without the boil kettle and went with a 20g Boilermaker to avoid these issues. The diameters are the same - the MB lids fit exactly on my kettle - and I get 1.7 gal/hr loss confirmed over time. Pretty much just what divrguy posted it should be according to his calculation.

I can't imagine babysitting a 14g boil in that kettle. Because it's so wide a gallon is less than an inch from the top (.95 inches according to the manual).

 

[dcbc]

That's what my preboil is as well. I ended up making my 15 gallon boil kettle from Morebeer my HLT and getting a 20 G boil kettle (from homebrewstuff.com---same kettle, but with weldless fittings). I think my boil off is about 12%. The 14.x gallong preboil gets me 11 gallons post boil, and about 10 gallons plus a little below the dip tube going into two kegs. I was able to do it in the 15 gallon kettle, but it was a lot of babysitting. It kind of still is, but I can now do those bopils batches with 2 hour boils and even higher preboil volumes.