Boil over prevention

[Chrishendo]

Has anyone used Distillers Conditioner to try and stop boil over.?

It's an anti-foaming agent and it's easier to get hold of than Fermcap.

Just wondering.

 

[Garfield]

Are the brewing or distilling?

If brewing, just stick your mash paddle in the kettle and you won't get boil overs

 

[MHB]

Antifoam has been talked about before.
Ones made for brewing (i.e. Fermcap and others) don't tend to carry through into the finished beer where they still work as antifoam or perhaps anti-head would be a better way to put it. Can't guarantee that products made for other jobs will be good for the finished beer.
I know my local sells Fermcap, in a 10mL (from memory) syringe

The other option is to make sure your kettle is big enough not to boil over, having a spray bottle of water handy is helpful. A kettle 15-30% bigger than the wort volume is recommended for commercial brewers, I would probably suggest >30% for people doing BIAB, so if you were boiling 25L, a 32.5L kettle would be a good start (40L is even better) Probably one reason 40L urns are such a popular BIAB vessel.
Mind you if you try to boil a turbid or "Blue" (not fully converted) wort nothing will stop the foam.
Mark

 

[BJB]

Fermcap, I use two drips from a teat pipette in a 55lt boil. Works great otherwise I would get a boil over every time.

 

[Hpal]

I just assumed boilovers were just another home brew urban legend, never had one or come close so not sure what I’ve been doing differently.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

<< I push the limits with a 55lt keggle. (Avatar pic) Right to the top its probably 57lt. First off: first wort hops seem to tame the froth a bit even a small amount. I batch sparge so get each run off boiling past hot break then add next runnings, repeat etc. This divide's the total hot break instead of getting one big frothy by boiling the whole pre boil volume in one hit (which would definately be a messy boilover) I can effectively get my boiling volume to 1 inch from the brim. (55lt) A spray water bottle there on stand by to shoot down the froth if necessary. I still get the little dribbles down the sides sometimes when I walk away and then smell the burnt toffee "oh shit!" and run back but never any bad boilovers.

 

[Chrishendo]

Thanks guys - great advice as always on this forum.
So far I have not had a boil-over, but its always make me do some uber-paddling when it gets near the boil (maybe just my personal paranoia).
I like the water spray idea and will try that.

Happy New year everyone. Heres to some great brews in 2018. Cheers.............

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

I hang a fan over the kettle, pointing down onto the wort, works for me.