Site glass boil over

[kproudfoot]

I have not brewed a batch in my new keggle yet but have been experimenting with burners. One thing I've had happen is my site glass boils over way before my water in the pot gets to boiling. This makes sense with the volume in the site glass being so small. I put a heat shield under it my second attempt and it still boiled over (just not as fast).

So is this typical? I just don't want wort all over the ground when I am done.

 

[GPP33]

I'm not sure what the real purpose of a sight glass is in a kettle so I'd just say remove it. I had thought about adding one because they look sexy as hell but then realized that they serve no real purpose so I canned that idea. Open to feedback but if I know the volume when I start my boil and I know the volume when i finish my boil what value does it add?

I guess your two options if you want to keep it are to either cap it or tie it back into the kettle at the top. An open sight glass seems extra stupid.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

I'm co fused what you mean by site glass boil over?
A site glass goes on the drain connection.
Can you please clarify?

 

[day_trippr]

I'd say a larger heat shield is in order.

fwiw, I have sight glasses on all of my kettles (with heat shields that actually work) and find them immensely useful - particularly the one on my MLT, which will indicate if I'm pumping out too fast during recirculation/run-off and risking a stuck mash...

Cheers!

 

[GPP33]

I'd say a larger heat shield is in order.

fwiw, I have sight glasses on all of my kettles (with heat shields that actually work) and find them immensely useful - particularly the one on my MLT, which will indicate if I'm pumping out too fast during recirculation/run-off and risking a stuck mash...

Cheers!

What do you gain by having them on your boil kettle though?

 

[day_trippr]

I fly sparge and use the BK glass to indicate when I've hit my pre-boil volume.
I actually position an alligator clip on the gauge shield at the correct spot and sparge 'til I hit it.
Note these are recipes I've done often enough to know the end-of-runoff pH and gravity are within limits. I test both these days only to confirm.

On the HLT I always fill to at least 12 gallons to cover the HEX so I use it there, then later use the sight glass to give me a hint on the sparge process, though that's incidental use to be sure, as the sparge volume is driven by the pre-boil volume.

wrt the MLT sight gauge it actually took a few batches with my 10 gallon rig to realize it was giving me information that was valuable. The one time I
stuck the mash from aggressive recirculation was before I realized I had been totally ignoring the sight glass on that vessel and it had been yelling at me to slow down

My original 5 gallon setup uses a 10g Rubbermaid MLT which I didn't want to drill for a gauge, so a sight glass on a MLT was new to me. Wouldn't run a recirculating rig without one now...

Cheers!

 

[greyghost]

Some of us like them. Bobby M @ Brew Hardware sells a shield.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/hs.sm.htm

 

[kproudfoot]

Some of us like them. Bobby M @ Brew Hardware sells a shield.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/hs.sm.htm

Yeah that's were I got all my hardware. Even with that I still got some boil over (but not nearly as much

 

[kproudfoot]

Yeah I got all my hardware from brewhardware. The heat shield help but still seemed to have boil over.

 

[Bobby_M]

If you boil in the sightglass even with a heat shield, consider throttling back the flame. You are putting a ton of heat out into the atmosphere and wasting a lot of gas. There's a certain point where the flame is as large as the pot will absorb and then when you go higher, you gain no heating performance.

 

[kproudfoot]

If you boil in the sightglass even with a heat shield, consider throttling back the flame. You are putting a ton of heat out into the atmosphere and wasting a lot of gas. There's a certain point where the flame is as large as the pot will absorb and then when you go higher, you gain no heating performance.

Makes sense. I have never used one before or brewed with my new keggles yet but have help from someone experienced on my 1st brew day.