Success with eBIAB and wheat beers?

[brooklanebrewing]

Hello, sorry if this is a long read, my main question is at the bottom of the post.

The problem I am having is that all my wheat beers are getting scorched.

the basics of my system:
20 gal kettle with raised false bottom
Camco ULWD 5500w Element
Auberins 2352 PID controller
Panel similar to Kal's
Sight glass teed with RTD temp probe
March pump for recirc/ whirlpooling

I know why the first batch burned: while recirculating to step to the next mash temp I didn't throttle back the pump and air was drawn in the sight glass creating an air pocket in the bottom of the kettle. I was drawing faster than would drain through the bag. As soon as i noticed I stopped the pump. Unfortunately, i assume the element got red hot and bad things happened. I continued my 90 min. boil not realizing what damage had been done. The wort tasted fine but smelled horrible. During cleanup i noticed a carbon layer burned to the element. I fermented anyway and the resulting beer was undrinkable. (totally soot tasting).

Next I did a stout. 60 Minute Boil. Turned out great.

Thought the empty bottom was the only problem so i made another wheat beer 90min.--->turned out semi-scorched

Then I figured maybe the manual setting was too high (72%) so i tried again at 60%. Beer 4 on the new system was a moose drool clone---> turned out pretty good (not burned anyway)

Then another wheat beer with a step mash. I used a 90 minute boil with the manual setting at about 60% to maintain. Wort smelled good until the last 30 min. Then started getting this burnt smell again. I do notice alot of hot break and solids during the boil for wheat beers and when I cleaned up the element was totally coated. (not black carbon like before but kind of like cake crust).

I do have another element to replace the one with the partial carbon layer. Other than that I have no idea what i can change. Hopefully, the element with the deposits was my problem all along after the first batch disaster but is not really affected by non-wheat beers.

One other thing I changed was to double the diameter of the holes in the false bottom (pictured before enlarging holes) to 7/8" and hopefully add about 4 times the drainage ability.


----
I guess my bottom line question is: are people making good wheat beers, such as hefeweizens, with eBIAB and a 90 minute boil?

Thanks for any insight I can get

 

[pvtschultz]

I'm having the exact same problems as you, but w/o the wheat. I have a nearly identical system as you except that I don't have a recirculation pump and I use a PWM to control boil strength. My first batch was BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde - it turned out very good and is almost gone. My second batch was a malted apple beer - doesn't taste so good, but not because of the BK. Both of these batches used a 60 minute boil.

My third and fourth batches were lagers with 90 minute boils. I didn't notice the scorching of the third batch until fermentation was done and I was checking FG. I could smell the scorching during the boil of the fourth batch.

I have a spare element so I am going to swamp them out for the next batch with a couple modifications. I'm going to bend the element to open it up some and hopefully create better fluid flow to keep localized hot spots from forming. I'm going to use a hop spider for bittering additions. I am also going to reduce my boil off rate from ~20%/hr to 15%/hr. I'll also pick a beer with a 60 minute boil like the centennial blonde again.

I'd really like to hear from more people that use these elements with 90 minute boils. I'm beginning to think, at least in the factory configuration, that there isn't enough flow through the element to prevent scorching during long boils. I didn't notice the smell of the fourth batch until the last 20-30 minutes of the boil.

I would pull the false bottom for the boil. I left mine in for a couple of stove-top AG batches and there was always hops packed along the edge and I wondered if that was affecting utilization.

 

[brooklanebrewing]

Does your element have a black crusty coating? Mine Started about an inch away from the element base. I chipped off what i could but it's still got patches of "coal" on it. I did run my last batch without the bottom for most of the boil then put it back in at the end to set my chiller on for whirlpool cooling.

As far as boil off, I would say that 20% sounds fairly high. From what Jamil Zainasheff says 15% is about the max you want. So, I believe dropping down would definitely help.

I'm going to try a full pilsner malt patersbier sometime within the next 5 days. Hopefully the new element and better false bottom help. Making bad beer is so painful.

My other options for the future might be to put legs on the chiller and just eliminate the false bottom for the whole boil.

Hopefully we can figure this out.

 

[pvtschultz]

Yup, I made a bunch of coal but not nearly enough to be useful and heat my house with. I wasn't going to brew next week, but I'm going to have to now to keep drinkable beer in the pipeline.

 

[theschick]

What did you use to make that false bottom?

 

[brooklanebrewing]

Came with the kettle off of ebay. It's an 80 qt. I got it shipped for $125.

I can find the exact kettle for you if you're interested and they still have some.

 

[brooklanebrewing]

Update:

I believe there was a carbon coating on the element from my first scorched batch that was making the burnt flavors in the succeeding batches. I pulled out the element and took a wire wheel to the whole thing until it was shiny. The dust thrown off by the wire wheel had the same burnt smell as my beers so I'm fairly confident that that was the problem.

Then I brewed a pilsner with a 60 min boil. Element still looked nice and shiny after the boil so now I feel comfortable with attempting my hefeweizen again. Fingers crossed, Hopefully I can start producing drinkable beer again. I'll update again with the results.

 

[pvtschultz]

I sampled my dunkel and it is going down the drain as soon as I have time, it tastes like pure ashes. I ended up ordering the Camco 5500W ripple element at the suggestion of others to try and reduce the chances during a 90 min boil. I think that the key thing is to clean the element thoroughly after each batch to prevent an accumulation which could lead to scorching.