Buring my beer, Help!

[planker101]

I have been brewing for awhile, but with propane. I just switched to an electric system and have burnt two batches.

Currently have an auberins PID, 4500 watt element from lowes (straight, not the wavy kind), and a 20 gallon single vessel BIAB setup.

The first batch I burnt came out BAD. I called it the Ash Tray PA. I *thought* it burnt (and this was most likely a large contributor) because I added honey to the boil (heavy honey sits at the bottom on the heating element, burns, don't do that again. Problem solved... or so I thought).

I just brewed my 2nd batch, no honey or heavy sugars this time. Burnt flavor is not nearly as bad, but definitely noticeable.

Here is exactly what I did.

Bring water to 160. Add grain. Stabilize temp to 152. Heat occasionally during mash, but have indicator light to show when heating and stirred continuously while burner was on. After mashing raise bag and let it drain into pot. Add about 2 gallons of top off water. Bring to boil. Set temp at the minimum needed to keep boil going. Burner on for a total of about 3/4 of 60 minute boil.

My only two thoughts are to buy a 5500 watt ULWD heating element, or to try and use the setting on the PID that pulses the burner a certain percentage of the time. I'm still not super familiar with the PID and don't know what the settings are called, but I'm using the one that shoots for a temp, not the one that has the element on a certain percentage of the time.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated as I don't want to go back to propane.

Thanks!

 

[GreenMonti]

I'm thinking the element your using isn't a ULWD. So, it's getting to hot thereby scorching your wort. I'd get a ULWD element.

As to the setting. Your referring to manual mode. That will pulse the on time. It's best to run manual mode for the boil.

 

[2trout]

After your honey/ Ash Tray IPA, did you scrub down the element? Any scorched material left on the element has got to contribute flavor to the next batch.

 

[planker101]

My current element is not an ULWD element, reading stuff on this forum seemed like that got mixed feelings. I'm definitely considering switching though.
I COMPLETELY cleaned the element after last time, probably overkill.

 

[TexasWine]

Couple of things. You haven't mentioned anything about the condition of your heating element at the end of the brew day. Is it covered in scorched black stuff? Any time I've scorched a batch, this has happened.

Is your bag sitting in your element during the mash? If so, it doesn't sound like you're scorching during the mash because your bag would be burned if it were happening then.

What kind of bag are you using? Specifically, how open is the mesh and could it be allowing a bunch of fine grain particles (dust/flour) to settle on the element? This could cause scorching.

You should use manual mode during the boil and not be setting a temperature. Dial in the percentage you need to maintain a good simmer and you'll be good to go. Now that I think about it, could this be the culprit?

Using the set temp, is your boil kind of pulsing, like the element is turning on and off with pretty significant lags between? I've had a batch scorch once because I paused the boil and all the proteins and what not settled to the bottom. When I turned the element back on, scorch city!

Oh, and you don't absolutely have to use ULWD elements. I use them, but I also view them as extra protection in case you do something you shouldn't.

 

[GreenMonti]

Couple of things. You haven't mentioned anything about the condition of your heating element at the end of the brew day. Is it covered in scorched black stuff? Any time I've scorched a batch, this has happened.

Is your bag sitting in your element during the mash? If so, it doesn't sound like you're scorching during the mash because your bag would be burned if it were happening then.

What kind of bag are you using? Specifically, how open is the mesh and could it be allowing a bunch of fine grain particles (dust/flour) to settle on the element? This could cause scorching.

You should use manual mode during the boil and not be setting a temperature. Dial in the percentage you need to maintain a good simmer and you'll be good to go. Now that I think about it, could this be the culprit?

Using the set temp, is your boil kind of pulsing, like the element is turning on and off with pretty significant lags between? I've had a batch scorch once because I paused the boil and all the proteins and what not settled to the bottom. When I turned the element back on, scorch city!

Oh, and you don't absolutely have to use ULWD elements. I use them, but I also view them as extra protection in case you do something you shouldn't.

When i first boiled with my new setup. I had a pulsing during the boil. Mine was cause by not having the pid set to ssr. Instead it was set for a mechanical relay. That slowed the pulses down.

 

[augiedoggy]

Regardless of all the ways you can tweak things and take precautions to make that element work.... You can just replace it with a better ALL stainless 4500w ULWD element that wont rust at the base and under the nut that holds it in the kettle for $30 shipped from here http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aiicioo-Hea...V-4500w-with-1-INCH-NPSM-Thread-/321917164405 if you do this you wont ever have to worry about accidentally scorching your beer. It will also be easier to wipe clean. otherwise you have to do things like cut the power with shorter pulses and make sure the element doesnt turn off and back on after the proteins settle on it (which will cause them to burn to the element surface).
people have better luck with regular density elements when they are lower power like the 1500w and 2000w ones... the 450oww and 5500w ones are just not a good choice but they are super cheap so some people sell these with their systems and you will see people using them with extra caution and no benefit but size in certain cases where a ripple wont work.

In your case you would already be ahead if you had just spent the $30 on the proper ULWD element Why deal with the headaches?
I learned the same lesson with my first rims configuration and had to dump 10 gallons... sucks!

 

[planker101]

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like I should probably implement both of the ideas I had. Been trying to talk myself into brewhardwares TC element anyways.

TexasWine, Thanks for all the excellent information. My element had massive amounts of carbon the time I used honey. Around 1/8" that cracked off in large chunks. 2nd time a very thin layer of burned material on the element. First time it seemed that the honey was the obvious culprit and I wasn't worried about the next brew day. This time I was at a loss. But my element was pulsing as you describe and could have been letting proteins settle. My bag seems decent, but it is my first bag so I'' not a good judge. I had it custom made by a guy named Jeff because I wanted specific features. I do have a couple bags from the popular "W" name I can't think of right now, I'll have to compare the mesh.

Thanks again for all the replies, I will make some changes and cross my fingers for the next brew

 

[GreenMonti]

Maybe do another boil in manual mode.
I wonder if you could just boil sugar water to see if the pulsating boil was the issue?

 

[augiedoggy]

Maybe do another boil in manual mode.
I wonder if you could just boil sugar water to see if the pulsating boil was the issue?

Yes that might help but those are all work arounds vs just using an ULWD element which eliminates the need for all these percautions and buildup on the element... Especially with BIAB were a bag is sitting on that element surface.

@Planker101
Not for nothing but you might want to check the country of manufacture on the TC element from Bobby... he just stated that hes seen a particular failure mentioned in another recent thread multiple times with the chinese elements and never with the US made ones.(https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=595986) ... If I was going to pay $75 for an element with a TC fitting attached I'd sure like to think its not just one of these http://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...62175659.html?spm=a2700.7724838.30.260.wVmlxj sold by the manufacturer for between $3-10 a piece in bulk.. I dont mean To insult anyone because Bobbys prices are some of the fairest Ive seen... Who knows maybe hes dealing through a middleman or getting them from another chinese supplier who charges much more? That $3 pricing could possibly be without the TC fitting attached (and $10 could be with it) as well but you would still be getting a $3 chinese element with a $67 tc fitting in this case IMHO...

 

[planker101]

Augiedoggy. Thanks for looking out, but neither of those elements look remotely like the one on Bobby's site. Plus if Bobby is commenting about failure of chinese elements I doubt he would sell the models he has seen fail. Everything I have purchased from him has been high quality. I'll keep trusting him until a product fails and he fails to make it right... which I doubt will ever happen. Bobby has helped me out when I made ordering mistakes. If he'll fix MY mistakes I'm sure he will continue to stand behind his products. His customer service is so good I buy everything I can from him even if I can get a better price. Nothing but good things to say about him and brewhardware.com

 

[augiedoggy]

Augiedoggy. Thanks for looking out, but neither of those elements look remotely like the one on Bobby's site. Plus if Bobby is commenting about failure of chinese elements I doubt he would sell the models he has seen fail. Everything I have purchased from him has been high quality. I'll keep trusting him until a product fails and he fails to make it right... which I doubt will ever happen. Bobby has helped me out when I made ordering mistakes. If he'll fix MY mistakes I'm sure he will continue to stand behind his products. His customer service is so good I buy everything I can from him even if I can get a better price. Nothing but good things to say about him and brewhardware.com

Well besides the color of the plastic insulator on the plug they look the same to me as the ones pictured further down in the link. From the sounds of it you just seen the pictures at the top.

Also I don't think Bobby was talking about Chinese elements he had no experience with. He was talking about the ones he does which are most likely the ones that he sold or selling he's probably referring to ones that he's had to replace because of failures. Also if you read his comment in the thread I quoted you would see he's referring to all Chinese elements being more likely to fail with the problem in that thread which is what I'm saying if you're going to spend that kind of money you might want to buy a better quality element.
The ones I linked above are in fact the ones that Ebrew used to sell I don't know if he still sells the same ones but the photos were at one point identical to what he had on his site right down to the manufacturer's markings

The best thing to do I guess would be to contact Bobby and not assume anything I know before he sold the chinese-made elements he would stress why the u.s. made once he sold cost more money because they were better quality. He also doesn't mention whether or not these are UL listed which could have something to do with the price if they are because most of the cheaper Chinese ones are not.

 

[bbohanon]

As a long time e-brewer now, the root problem is the lack of the use of an ULWD element.
If you make the change, make sure you get a SS one so the base does not rust.

Swap that out and I think things get much better for you.

 

[planker101]

Brewed again today... I'm 90% sure my PID settings were the issue. However, I also had a 5500 ULWD element this time, so there is that 10% doubt. I discovered that after auto tuning my "t" was set to 18. So when boiling my element was on for 18 sec straight at times. I changed "t" to 2 (big old can of worms here, had to change my "P" among other things) and this time was able to wipe the element clean instead of hitting it with the wire wheel. No burning this time!

Thanks for all the helpful replies!

 

[passedpawn]

Brewed again today... I'm 90% sure my PID settings were the issue. However, I also had a 5500 ULWD element this time, so there is that 10% doubt. I discovered that after auto tuning my "t" was set to 18. So when boiling my element was on for 18 sec straight at times. I changed "t" to 2 (big old can of worms here, had to change my "P" among other things) and this time was able to wipe the element clean instead of hitting it with the wire wheel. No burning this time!

Thanks for all the helpful replies!

If you're using an Auber PID, there is an autotune process that should set the PID coefficients for you. It's a simple process: just run your system as you always do, but with water. The PID will illiterately adjust the coefficients until they are optimized, then it saves them.

I don't recall how to start the autotune, but it's easy. Look in the manual, or of course search.

 

[planker101]

Autotune set my "t" to 18. this meant that at times my element was on for 18 seconds straight. Of course this does not matter for water, but for wort it is not ok.

 

[TexasWine]

Autotune set my "t" to 18. this meant that at times my element was on for 18 seconds straight. Of course this does not matter for water, but for wort it is not ok.

Not sure this is accurate. The auto tune should only change the P, I and D values. My understanding is that "t" is something entirely different.

 

[planker101]

I'll have to run it again and see if my t changes. I could be wrong about that. I *think* I set my t to 2 originally (prior to auto-tuning) and found it at 18 when I was checking settings after auto-tuning. Frankly PIDs are a mystery to me. And based on the number of questions asked about them it seems like I am not the only one, haha. The strangest part is the temp registering in the high hundreds when t is 2 and p is above 1... or 900 depending on who you ask.

 

[golfindia]

Autotune set my "t" to 18. this meant that at times my element was on for 18 seconds straight. Of course this does not matter for water, but for wort it is not ok.

How long does it take to boil wort with 2 second pulses?

I turn my 5500w element on full blast until I hit 212, which can be 15-20 min or more. Never burned or scorched anything. I have no idea what the T setting is on my PIDs. My elements aren't ULWD either.

 

[augiedoggy]

If you're using an Auber PID, there is an autotune process that should set the PID coefficients for you. It's a simple process: just run your system as you always do, but with water. The PID will illiterately adjust the coefficients until they are optimized, then it saves them.

I don't recall how to start the autotune, but it's easy. Look in the manual, or of course search.

a mypin works the same way if you happen to have one of them.

 

[augiedoggy]

How long does it take to boil wort with 2 second pulses?

I turn my 5500w element on full blast until I hit 212, which can be 15-20 min or more. Never burned or scorched anything. I have no idea what the T setting is on my PIDs. My elements aren't ULWD either.

your lucky, you also likely never turned off your element for more than a couple seconds and then turned it back on as in your setup it would very likely cause the proteins that settled on the element while off to burn onto the element... Thats one of the most common hard lessons learned here.

I generally set my pid to 208 and then have the alarm go off... this way I can put it into manual mode at that time and avoid boilovers... I find its just easiest for my workflow and configuration.. I do have ULWD elements though.

 

[golfindia]

Im just having a hard time wrapping my head around the physics of how 2sec pulses don't burn wort touching an element but 18s pulses do. What about a 3 sec pulse? 17 sec? I understand the settling crud phenominon, but needing to pulse to keep from scorching wort during boiling makes zero sense to me. Or maybe I've burned every beer I've made and I'm too dumb to know the difference.

 

[augiedoggy]

Im just having a hard time wrapping my head around the physics of how 2sec pulses don't burn wort touching an element but 18s pulses do. What about a 3 sec pulse? 17 sec? I understand the settling crud phenominon, but needing to pulse to keep from scorching wort during boiling makes zero sense to me. Or maybe I've burned every beer I've made and I'm too dumb to know the difference.

the longer the element is on at one time the hotter the surface is... short pulses have better control over preventing the element surface from getting as hot since it never effectively gets full power. its actually pretty simple they use this type of pwm control to control dimming of led lighting.... now if the pwm pulse is only a 10th of a second the led is going to be dim to our eyes now if it pulses every second or even every half second we would see the led get to full brightness then off then back on right? which one do you think would result in more heat coming from the led.

My mypin pid pulses my elements in one second intervals as does my auber ezboil.

 

[golfindia]

Liquid can't get hotter than 212, unless you are below sea level, or you are brewing in a pressure cooker. If the surface temp of the element never gets above 212, how would the liquid surrounding it even get to boil? How much hotter is the surface of the element after its been on 2 seconds versus being on 3? Sugar burns at what temp? Dunno, but its more than 212, right? How can sugar in a solution stay in contact with an element long enough to burn? I am open to enlightenment, but something is awry here.

 

[TexasWine]

Liquid can't get hotter than 212, unless you are below sea level, or you are brewing in a pressure cooker. If the surface temp of the element never gets above 212, how would the liquid surrounding it even get to boil? How much hotter is the surface of the element after its been on 2 seconds versus being on 3? Sugar burns at what temp? Dunno, but its more than 212, right? How can sugar in a solution stay in contact with an element long enough to burn? I am open to enlightenment, but something is awry here.

Surface temp of the element can get way hotter than 212F. Hour much hotter I don't really know, but browse around and you'll see instances where people have burned their BIAB bags. The only way that is possible is for the element to get substantially hotter than the boiling temp of water at 14.7 PSIA.

While there are instances of sugar scorching on elements, that happens most often with late boil additions of sugars. The scorching I am most familiar with when it comes to electric elements is when a boil is paused, proteins settle due to the lack of agitation from the boil, the element kicks back on and they scorch.

 

[augiedoggy]

Liquid can't get hotter than 212, unless you are below sea level, or you are brewing in a pressure cooker. If the surface temp of the element never gets above 212, how would the liquid surrounding it even get to boil? How much hotter is the surface of the element after its been on 2 seconds versus being on 3? Sugar burns at what temp? Dunno, but its more than 212, right? How can sugar in a solution stay in contact with an element long enough to burn? I am open to enlightenment, but something is awry here.

Nothing "awry" here... Its a real issue many have had and not something we are making up. Just because your just learning about it and do not yet understand it doesnt make it any less real. No one is trying to take you for a fool.

A heating element can possibly get red hot even when submerged in liquid depending on watt density.(pulse time here is the controlling factor in determining watt density) Its always much hotter than the surrounding liquid... Thats actually how the liquid turns to steam thats comes contact with it and bubbles up vigorously to the top to escape causing this crazy reaction called "BOILING" now a high density boil would be no different than sticking a torch under a pot of soup.... What would happen if you concentrated that much heat in one spot at the bottom of the pot of soup? it burns to surface of the pot. but spread that same amount of heat energy more evenly onto the bottom of the pot with a large burner and you are much less likely to get scorched soup.

 

[golfindia]

Not sure soup is really that close of an analogy, either molecularly or thermodynamically, but OK. I can run my elements at 100% duty cycle to achieve a boil, and I never burn my wort. I'm just lucky, good enough for me.

 

[planker101]

How long does it take to boil wort with 2 second pulses?

I turn my 5500w element on full blast until I hit 212, which can be 15-20 min or more. Never burned or scorched anything. I have no idea what the T setting is on my PIDs. My elements aren't ULWD either.

Really don't know how long it would take. Didn't time it this time as I was still messing with stuff. After top off water I was about 140 F, probably took 30-45 min to boil (totally guessing on that though.) Also, was not 2 second pulses. t was set to 2 and I was running at 75%, so 1.5 second pulses. There are a bunch of variables that could be causing my problem. I am new to electric brewing. All I know is that this time using a t of 2 after mashing (ran in auto mode with t of 18 when it was just water in the pot) and a 5500 ULWD element I didn't burn my beer, so I will use the same method again. Maybe after I have a few sucessful brews sitting on the shelf I'll play around a bit, but two burnt 10 gallon batches in a row equals a very cautious me haha. The burnt flavor is AWFUL. Like an ashtray smells.