Wort- boil

[Jormunnr]

Is that your hops in the bag?

You'll know when you have a boil going... View attachment 773834

 

[AZ Maverick]

Yeah, I do whole grain BIAB brewing.
I mash in a bag, no sparge (unless I have a big OG beer going) and during the boil I put my hops in a bag also.
Cleanup is easy.

 

[Jormunnr]

Yeah, I do whole grain BIAB brewing.
I mash in a bag, no sparge and during the boil I put my hops in a bag also.
Cleanup is easy.

Oh really? I only have a 8 gallon kettle trying on the stove. I was worried the grains wouldn't leave me enough space for water. So, I got a mash tun. Now I'm realizing the possible issue with my temp.

 

[AZ Maverick]

Oh really? I only have a 8 gallon kettle trying on the stove. I was worried the grains wouldn't leave me enough space for water. So, I got a mash tun. Now I'm realizing the possible issue with my temp.

Trying to do full volume boils on a stove is iffy at best.
You really should get a propane burner - they are pretty inexpensive, and it make the boil easy-peasy.

 

[Jormunnr]

That's what I am trying to get ATM. Concerned with my apartments rules. We aren't supposed to have grills on our patio or decks.

 

[AZ Maverick]

That's what I am trying to get ATM. Concerned with my apartments rules. We aren't supposed to have grills on our patio or decks.

Oh. Well that sucks.
I don't know what to tell you then.
But I do know that proper full volume boils on a stove are darn near impossible unless you have some kind of killer stover....
A good hot rolling boil at first in order to get a good hot break helps a lot in having a nice clear beer when you are done.

 

[Jormunnr]

Ah well dang.. yea it's just a basic electric stove. That 210-211 are the highest temps I have seen the kettle get.

 

[AZ Maverick]

Ah well dang.. yea it's just a basic electric stove. That 210-211 are the highest temps I have seen the kettle get.

You might want to research partial mash brewing.
I used to do that before I went full volume with an outdoor burner.
Partial mash is easy inside on a stove and gives you much more flexibility in your brews.

 

[brewgar]

It will be beer.

 

[Jormunnr]

Think reflective insulation wrapped around my kettle would help me get 5-6gallons boiling on my stove better?

 

[AZ Maverick]

Think reflective insulation wrapped around my kettle would help me get 5-6gallons boiling on my stove better?

No!
I do use reflective insulation after I get my water up to temp for the mash and then remove the heat.
I accidentally left my reflective insulation on when I restarted my boil and in only a few seconds it melted the bottom of my insulation before I realized my mistake.
The reflective insulation will melt onto your pot if you have it wrapped on your pot while you are heating.

 

[Jormunnr]

Oh jeeze thank you.

 

[VikeMan]

Think reflective insulation wrapped around my kettle would help me get 5-6gallons boiling on my stove better?

Insulation on boil kettles can be risky, depending on the material, the placement, and the heat source. Assuming you could do it safely, it could certainly bring improvement, but I wouldn't expect miracles. The root issue is a lack of heat. If you are determined to use your stove top with a single kettle (i.e. not split into two kettles), you might want to look into brewing heat sticks.

 

[Jormunnr]

I saw something about them yesterday.

 

[jerrylotto]

All else being equal, an uncovered bring-to-boil time plus an uncovered X minute boil does get rid of more DMS than a covered bring-to-boil time plus the same uncoverd X minute boil.

But if it causes an issue, one could extend the boil time to compensate. i.e. DMS doesn't become permanently "locked in" by the kettle being temporarily covered. I mention this because I have read concerns that a covered kettle causes DMS to condense and drip back into the kettle. That may be so, but there's nothing stopping the DMS from re-volatilizing and escaping the uncovered kettle later.

DMS has a boiling point of 99° F and doesn't form an azeotrope with water. Even if your wort isn't boiling you're going to be driving off DMS. A cover acts like a condenser but as you said, it's not that the DMS can't escape, it just recondenses and drips back in so it takes a lot longer to drive it off covered..

 

[DBhomebrew]

I BIAB on a rather strong gas stove in my kitchen. 5gal kettle, one dunk sparge, full volume boil, 4gal into the fermenter.

A gentle simmer may be sufficient. A cover to help get you there is totally cool. Same goes for all but the last 30m of the boil.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/thread...-question-and-observation.655882/post-8398058

 

[hotbeer]

Does the stove have multiple burners? Use more kettles to reduce the size to whatever your stove burners can handle. Then pour them all into the same FV after cooling the wort.

I'd think you'd be okay just adding the hops to the largest kettle being boiled. Though some others with more knowledge on that will have to add their 2¢.

For mashing, I don't do a full volume mash. I use about a 1/3 of my water for the infusion and hold my temp for 1 hour. Then rinse the bag briefly in pots with water heated to mash out temp for the remaining water. The mash efficiency of doing that has been well over what I see a lot of others talk about for BIAB.

Though if I weren't doing this on my kitchen stove, I'd probably do a full volume mash.

 

[VikeMan]

I'd think you'd be okay just adding the hops to the largest kettle being boiled. Though some others with more knowledge on that will have to add their 2¢.

Hops should be split proportionally between the two kettles to get equivalent utilization (i.e. similar to a single larger boil). Adding all the hops to only part of the total volume results in lower utilization.
This is also the reason why hop utilization improves when extract brewers switch from partial volume boils to full volume boils.

 

[Dancy]

That's what I am trying to get ATM. Concerned with my apartments rules. We aren't supposed to have grills on our patio or decks.

Prior to buying a Brewer’s Edge Mash & Boil, I used an 8G kettle with Reflectix wrapped around it on an 1800W induction burner and got a healthy boil going. I live in a 3rd floor condo building and brew in the kitchen because I can’t do so on the balcony. getting 6G to a boil took some time but in the same ballpark as my M&B.

 

[doug293cz]

DMS has a boiling point of 99° F and doesn't form an azeotrope with water. Even if your wort isn't boiling you're going to be driving off DMS. A cover acts like a condenser but as you said, it's not that the DMS can't escape, it just recondenses and drips back in so it takes a lot longer to drive it off covered..

A cover will condense some of the steam coming from any degree of boil, and the latent heat of vaporization given up when the steam condenses will heat the lid to somewhere between 200°F and 212°F (lower than 212°, where the heat input to the lid from the condensing steam is lower than the heat lost from the lid to the environment.) DMS, with its low boiling temp, will not condense on a surface that hot and will escape with whatever steam escapes around the unsealed lid (if your lid were sealed, you'd have a pressure cooker.)

The rate limiting step for DMS elimination is the conversion of SMM to DMS, once the DMS is created it is eliminated from the wort very quickly, as long as there are convection currents in the liquid to bring the DMS to the surface - a simmer is enough. The half life of SMM @ 212°F is between about 30 - 35 minutes, and varies with the pH (see attached papers.)

Slow, un-agitated, and covered cooling from boil down to about 170°F is what can be a problem. SMM continues to convert to DMS within this temperature range (rate goes down as temp goes down.) And without steam escaping, and little/no convection without heating, DMS will remain in the headspace and wort longer, and at least some of what is in the headspace will end up condensing and falling into the wort as the BK and lid cool.

Brew on