Hot break

[Pickettj]

How critical is the hotbreak in the brewing process? Here's the situation. I have a batch of the same beer as a friend. We brewed the same beer, the same day, a few hours apart. His has no odor, mine smells like dough (normal). Mine has been violently fermenting for over 24 hours and his stopped after about 10. The one big difference, and i know it matters, is that he's in a bucket and i'm in a carboy. The other difference is that he has direct contact with the brew kettle so he reached full boil and had a hot break. I have a ceramic top stove so I have heat transfer loss and was only able to get to a low, mild boil. i never saw a hot break. Will this affect my end product on what is now 10 gallons of beer (neither of my first two batches had a hotbreakDS). Thanks for your info.

 

[mbird]

I don't think the fermenting vessel has much to do with it. The hot break is important for the quality and clarity of the final beer. It helps coagulate proteins and the vigorous boil drives off DMS. But the baffling thing for me here is the fermentation between your two batches. Are these all-grain brews? If so you may consider mash temp differences and also mash ph. If malt extract then yeast qty and quality along with fermentation temperatures. I've had beers ferment to completion within a 24hr period when racked onto a large yeast cake.
mark
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[b-boy]

Could be a leaky bucket. They are a little more prone to leaking than a carboy. Doesn't mean it's not fermenting. You're just not seeing bubbles.

What do you mean when you say you never saw a hot break? Generally I get a period of intense foaming right at the beginning of the boil which suddenly just disappears. Did you get anything like that? I've had a few brews where I got very little foaming during the hot break as well. I think it's a little different from batch to batch.

 

[Pickettj]

Could be a leaky bucket. They are a little more prone to leaking than a carboy. Doesn't mean it's not fermenting. You're just not seeing bubbles.

What do you mean when you say you never saw a hot break? Generally I get a period of intense foaming right at the beginning of the boil which suddenly just disappears. Did you get anything like that? I've had a few brews where I got very little foaming during the hot break as well. I think it's a little different from batch to batch.

No, now that I've seen a hot break I can tell you that I've never had one. I figured the leaky bucket lid was the cause for the apparent stop in fermenting but the main concern for me was the odor, or lack of odor, from the different batches.

 

[Pickettj]

I don't think the fermenting vessel has much to do with it. The hot break is important for the quality and clarity of the final beer. It helps coagulate proteins and the vigorous boil drives off DMS. But the baffling thing for me here is the fermentation between your two batches. Are these all-grain brews? If so you may consider mash temp differences and also mash ph. If malt extract then yeast qty and quality along with fermentation temperatures. I've had beers ferment to completion within a 24hr period when racked onto a large yeast cake.
mark
[email protected]

The kits were identical. They were extract kits from the LHBS with the same ingredients and the yeast was "smacked" mere seconds apart. I had both kits at my house and the hot break and a few hours are the only things that separate these batches. Well, that and the fermenting vessel and "chef" as he brewed his and I brewed mine.