Hot break

[fourhb]

I brewed a 5 gallon batch in my keggle so there was a lot of head room. Normally, I would try to control the hot break by lowering the flame. In this case I decided to ride it out with stirring, thinking that it would take about the same amount of time to subside - about a minute or two.

Turns out I was wrong about the time. It took well over five minutes to subside. The foam was up just about to the top of the keggle, but thankfully no boil over. Is there any advantage to this? Or am I wasting time during the brew day?

The recipe was a pretty standard IPA with 90% 2 row and crystal / Munich.

 

[friarsmith]

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/09/do-you-skim-off-foam-as-your-wort-comes.html

FWIW, I usually skim for the first 5 minutes of the boil then start the Hops Clock at 60/75/90 (depending on the beer) afterwards. This seems to give a more stable predictable boil, even w/ my usual vigorous boil, with less chance of boilover.