Can't boil, 2nd attempt

[david0161]

Hello everyone,

I purchased some brewing equipment and an extract kit from NB a few weeks ago. I am having issues with boiling the 3 gallons of water. As this is my first brew, it is kind of frustrating to not be able to boil water . I have a 20 qt stainless kettle and first tried to boil 3 gallons on the glass top stove. I ended up getting stuck at 210 and waiting around 2 1/2 hrs with no boil. I realized that my stove wasn't going to be able to boil so one day at Kmart I ran into a turkey fryer marked down from $80 to $20 so i went ahead and picked it up. Well needless to say, I tried boiling the water on the propane burner and after an hour and 15 minutes or so, I was at 212 for a while but couldn't come close to a full boil, just a few bubbles here and there.

If I remember correctly, the burner is a MasterBuilt 40,000 BTU with a 5 PSI regulator. I had the regulator cranked the whole time trying to get the boil with no luck. Granted it was 27 degrees out and the wind at 12 mph.

So I guess my questions are:

Should this burner be sufficient enough to get 3 gallons of liquid to a boil?

If not, are there any suggestions for a burner and/or other methods to get my current burner to boil?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[BendBrewer]

Yeah I would think 3 gallons would boil just fine. When I brewed on my glass stove top, I found that if I lifted one of the corners of the pot onto the 'lip' of the stove causing a small air gap under part of the pot really helped with the boil.

Start with a lid on and remove it when it comes to a boil.

 

[Christafer11]

This is crazy!! have you had a problem boiling water for regular cooking in the past? Does your stove work correctly? Have you tried boiling a much smaller amount of water in the brew pot? Did the turkey fryer come with a aluminum pot? If so did you try it. Last thing did you keep the lid on? that's very important when trying to boil this large amount of water. I started out using a flat glass top stove and would boil 3.5 gal then add water to bring up to the total 5 gal. It did have some trouble getting up to boil but once there usually could keep it going with the lid on or covering most of the pot.

 

[BendBrewer]

Yeah, you don't want the lid on during the boil.

 

[david0161]

Yeah I would think 3 gallons would boil just fine. When I brewed on my glass stove top, I found that if I lifted one of the corners of the pot onto the 'lip' of the stove causing a small air gap under part of the pot really helped with the boil.

Start with a lid on and remove it when it comes to a boil.

Will the boil maintain after the lid is removed? I have heard it is bad to leave the lid on while the wort is boiling, is this correct? I have only tried these boils with the lid off. My kettle has a glass lid with a vent hole.

This is crazy!! have you had a problem boiling water for regular cooking in the past? Does your stove work correctly? Have you tried boiling a much smaller amount of water in the brew pot? Did the turkey fryer come with a aluminum pot? If so did you try it. Last thing did you keep the lid on? that's very important when trying to boil this large amount of water. I started out using a flat glass top stove and would boil 3.5 gal then add water to bring up to the total 5 gal. It did have some trouble getting up to boil but once there usually could keep it going with the lid on or covering most of the pot.

I haven't had any problem with boiling water on the stove for any other purpose however this is the first time I've used this kettle. I haven't tried boiling a smaller amount as I knew I needed to do at least 3 gallons. I have also not tried the 30 qt aluminum pot that came with the fryer as I purchased the stainless just for brewing.

 

[buckeyebrewer]

Maybe the wind and cold was blowing the heat from under the pot....build a little aluminum foil heat shield around the turkey burner. The turkey burner is made to get oil up to 375 degrees to deep fry a turkey...I'm sure it will boil 3 gallons of water.

 

[Docjowles]

Yeah I'm not gonna lie, this thread is a head scratcher. You can't get water to boil???

To contribute: boiling with the top on is bad because there are certain chemicals that normally evaporate during the boil. The biggie is called DMS, it will give your beer a cooked corn flavor even in small amounts. If you leave the cover on, it evaporates, hits the lid, condenses and falls right back in. I've heard it's not as big a deal for extract brews because the manufacturer already boiled off the DMS for you, but I have never personally tested it. It's a real concern for sure in all-grain.

 

[azscoob]

I have a second fryer burner for heating water for my brewing, it has a 5psi regulator and if I turn on the propane tank too fast it trips something in the regulator and it will hardly release any propane so the burner puts out almost no heat, I need to hook up to the tank, slowly open the tank valve, then open the regulator valve, light and it works perfectly, another option is to get a 10 or 20psi regulator if the above process doesnt help, and just run the regulator valve a bit lower as needed to maintain a good boil.

 

[mojotele]

At 212 degrees at any level of air pressure you should be getting more than "a few bubbles here and there." At my elevation water boils at about 210 degrees.

You might want to check your thermometer while you're at it. It sounds like it might be off a bit.

EDIT: Using generic measurements found on the Internets, water should boil in Lafayette at about 211 degrees (210.933).

DOUBLE EDIT : That number is not precise as air pressure can change on a daily basis. It is, however, accurate enough for our purposes.

 

[Bottenbrew]

Do you have a garage or wall you can boil behind to break the wind some? When I brew in my driveway versus my garage (3 feet north or south) there is a significant difference between boil times, due to the heat transfer from the wind. If you can boil in the garage (with the garage door open of course) do so.

 

[yodalegomaster]

On the propane burner, there is a safety on the regulator, you must turn off the regulator, and open the tank valve first. If you don't do it that way you just get enought to light a pilot light. azscoob was on the right track here.

 

[david0161]

Thank you for the replies everyone! I make sure the regulator is off before turning on the gas but I did turn the valve pretty quick. Unfortunately the regulator also has a 15 minute timer so I have to keep my eye on it. It will be another day or two before I get give it another attempt as I might as well get my tank filled. Based on the suggestions, I will move it into the garage and out of the wind. I did some research and this seems okay to do despite all the safety warnings. I had some small bubbles at the center of the pot and they were rising very slow, I checked on it a few minutes later and the bubbles had disappeared and I gave up for the night. As far as the lid goes, I'll try keeping it off for the first attempt, if I can't get a boil then I might try putting the lid on and just see what happens.

 

[beerbaker]

I'm in the same boat.

I also can't get 3 gallons to boil in my stainless steel 15qt pot. It'll just about get there with the lid on. I tried again with about 2.5 gallons the other day, and still could just barely get it to roll. (on an old regular electric stove in my apartment). We cook all the time, but I've never had to boil that much liquid for any meal I've ever cooked. I can boil 1.5 gallons fine (I made 6 liters of soup a couple of weeks ago).

Luckily the first partial extract kit I tried only asked me to boil 5 liters (1,25gal) and to add the extract and hops to that amount, which brought it up around 6 liters for my boil. And then to top it off to 23 liters.


EDIT... didn't notice the date on this thread before I replied to it.