Yet another way to cause a boilover

[giligson]

I did a pretty standard Pilsner brew today but I did one new thing. Having some leftover nice yeast cake from a previous brew (but I didn't need that species of yeast) I decided to cannabalize for nutrient. So I dumped the cake into the boil. My pot has a 50L capacity and I was boiling 30L of wort - I have not ever had any boilover problems with this pot. About 2 minutes into the rolling boil, I turned away to do some cleanup when I heard a commotion. What a mess it was to clean up.
I only lost a little bit of wort (and I know its going to screw up my hops calculation b/c they preferentially come out in the foam) but I brew inside my garage on one of my utility work tables - so everything underneath had to be taken out and washed.

So the lesson for the day. Yeast cake may be a good nutrient but its protein content is high= lots of foam during hot break.
Live and learn I guess.

 

[newbeerpig]

Good story at least you were in the garage and not the house, I pulled a similar stunt indoors and ended up scraping the resulting candy off of everything. Who would have thought adding just a small amount of hopes would have reproduced the mentos and diet coke reaction on my stove. At least the SWMBO was not around to see it

 

[KYB]

I had a workout Tuesday and was a little sore the next day from lifting my pot off the burner like 50 times so it didn't boilover. It did it for awhile, not just a few minutes. I don't know if it was just too hot or what, but didn't go over 220 I don't think. I adjusted the gas (wasn't even on all the way) and it finally stopped wanting to boilover. I have an SP10.

 

[zanemoseley]

Fermcaps, enough said. I use it and routinely boil 5 gallons in a 5.5 gallon pot.

 

[KYB]

Hmm. I just recently starting seeing people mention this around here a few times but didn't know what it was and hadn't searched yet. Looked into it and sounds great. I may have to get some.

 

[kuphish]

Fermcaps, enough said. I use it and routinely boil 5 gallons in a 5.5 gallon pot.

Agreed. Works like a charm, just remember to put them in!

 

[portlandbeergeek]

I learned a new trick last week. Keep a spray bottle of cool, clean water near by when the wort is almost to a boil. When you see the wort start to foam up, hit it with a few sprays of water, it'll knock it right back down.

 

[Hammy71]

+1 on that....learned that on heare awhile ago.... Great advice. I'm a little scared of the femcap. Isn't that the stuff with silicon in it....that says if you use more than recommended you exceed the federal legal amount for human consuption?