Boiling question

[JBrady]

hello, I did edworts hefe today which was a 5.5 gallon batch size. I have my stirring spoon notched at 5.5 gallons and I eyeballed my boil volume to 6 gallons to compensate for boil off. When the 60 minute boil was over i only had about 4.5 gallons of volume left. The only thing that i can think of was I was boiling too hot and boiled off too much. With this only being my second brew I was thinking boil boil boil and not thinking about boil temp. Now that I think of it, it seemed like I had 20 minutes worth of hot break but I was probaly just boiling too hot huh? Any info from the veterans would be helpful on how to not have this happen again. Thanks in advance.

 

[BarleyWater]

I always boil off about 2 gallons in a 90 minute boil, so what you got sounds about right. Start with a higher volume next time.

As for the hot break, that is a bit long so you may be able to back off a bit, but different malts will give you different hot breaks. The more vigorous the boil the better hop utilization you get, so just make sure you keep it at a good rolling boil and it should be good.

 

[JBrady]

thanks man, half a gallon just wasn't enough boil off compensation then. thanks for the reply, im sure that this beer is going to turn out great just a little less volume than anticipated, no biggie, i'll just order some more ingrediants and get another going. lol.

 

[Jaybird]

I boil off 2 gallons in 60 min
JJ

 

[Blender]

I boil off 2 gallons in 60 min
JJ

I have about the same rate as well. I start with 8 and end up with 5.5

 

[Nablis]

Brew strong on the brewing network just discussed melanoidin formation which involves your boil off % definitely worth a listen.

A good boil is 10 to 15% per hour.

 

[DeadDoc]

I roughly boil off 1 gallon per hour :-D I think the crappy humidity levels have nothing to do with the lack of boil off... :cross: but this will make it fun when it comes time to having 8 gallons or so from mashing grains now.