Boil Over Preventer

[BigJefe]

Anyone ever tried using one of these while brewing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_watcher

 

[JOHN51277]

Never heard of that! Seems like it may work. I just use the silicone drops.

 

[humann_brewing]

fermcaps or similar works, never heard of milk watcher though.

 

[BigJefe]

Not talking on the cell phone while brewing is how I prevent boilovers...

I thought this thing looked pretty cool though... and it appears to facilitate circulation to prevent scorching.

Amazon sells them for like $4... cheaper than fermcap and it's reusable!

 

[jasonsargo]

I got mine years ago at the old LHBS for 5G batches in a flat-bottomed enamel pot (the glass Pot-Watcher in the wiki article), but I haven't seen one since. It seems to really help, especially with situations where you would expect a sudden boil and boil-over, like high gravity boils. I used to do my mead batches with a 15 min boil to skim albumin, and that high gravity sugar seemed to get out of control fast, unless the Pot-Watcher was rattling away in the bottom. And it works great for regular cooking, too.

We'll see how it works with 10G boils in a keggle. Different shapes and bigger volumes may negate it, but I bet the round bottom of the keggle may keep it centered where it needs to be, and the keggle's relatively narrow column/footprint may not be an issue.

Keep in mind, a centered dip-tube would get in the way in some keggles, but it's definitely worth the couple bucks.

 

[dzlater]

Just an idea
If you use an aquarium pump for aeration maybe it could be dual purposed to do this?

http://www.boilingminder.com/index.html