Constant Hotbreak foam for 45mins of the boil - why?

[takai]

Previously on my BIAB system i have only really had hot break for perhaps 5mins before the rolling boil started, but on this latest brew i had the hot break foam continue for a full 30mins of the boil and then even 15mins into hop additions before i got out a slotted spoon and removed a ton of the hot break material and the foam subsided.

Now i havent had this happen before on the 3V or BIAB systems, but in inspecting the bag i noticed a small hole in it. Would that sort of extended foam be from grain getting into the wort during the boil process?

 

[Midnight Brew]

What malts did you use?

I've had the same thing on my BIAB system with JW pils and floor malted Maris otter.

 

[SimoB]

This happened to me last brew, was a lot longer than normal. I used some Victory malt which was pretty old, I tasted it and I think it was a bit soft a stale.. maybe moisture. I used it anyway - I was putting it down to this. How fresh is your malt?

 

[takai]

Was using BB pale ale and JW wheat. Wheat picked up sealed from the LHBS on Friday and the malt from the group buy in March.
Came in a few points below target/usual too.

Same setup was used yesterday with no break foam problems.

 

[manticle]

I would say the hole is your culprit.

 

[MHB]

There are a bunch of factors that affect the amount of foaming, loosely they can be divided in to nucleating points and protein content of the wort.
Nucleation points are any sharp points where bubbles in a critical fluid start to form an example being those fine scratches in the bottom of some beer glasses, or possibly in your case more bits of malt and husk in the wort. this just provides more bubbles rising to the surface, it isn't really related to a persistent foam, but will exacerbate any existing foam problems.
You don't say what was in the mash but some ingredients cause more foaming than others, we add wheat to improve the foam on a lot of beers, if your brew contained more wheat or flaked product than usual that to can produce more foaming.

The main cause of foam at the start of a boil is protein, particularly very large molecular weight protein, there are hundreds of millions of different proteins (something like 1X1026 from memory) anyway far too many to give them all names, so we just group them by size, the largest soluble proteins in the wort are over 100,000mw in weight, these condense (break) fastest, the next group down 50,000-100,000mw protein next fastest and so on, at the end of a couple of hours of boiling all the 100Kmh+ protein will have condensed and formed Hot Break (its called hot break after it has coagulated and become insoluble (broken)). At the same time 95% of the 50-100Kmw will have broken and only about 1/2 of the <5,000mw proteins that we want to keep in the wort to build head retention in the finished beer.
Most of the really large proteins actually break at mashing temperatures and become trapped in the grist, BIABers who squese too enthusiastically can be adding a lot of very high weight protein to the wort, and cause a lot more foaming and end up with a lot more trub in the kettle.

Without knowing a hell of a lot more about your brew than I do it's very hard to give a simple answer as to the cause, but from what is above you can probably see that its a combination of factors.
The amount of protein, the size of the protein, the amount of energy going into the boil and the number of nucleating points all working together.
The amount of soluble protein mostly being decided by your choice of ingredients and whether or not you are doing a protein rest (makes more soluble protein), bag squeezing...
Getting enough energy into the wort (boil vigour) will help determine how long the protein that is in solution takes to break.
The number of nucleating points, that's one of the reasons brewers talk about running bright wort (clear) to the kettle.

You will get better beer if you try to get as clean a wort as possible before the start of the boil. Wait until you have achieved a good break before you start the clock and making your hop additions. Don't skim the wort, there are a very finite amount of head building ingredients in a wort and if you skim you will reduce these in the finished beer.

Isn't brewing fun
Mark

 

[takai]

Thanks for that. I had forgotten that wheat increases head and foam. Given the large percentage of wheat in this brew at least some of it will be that. But I don't think it is solely that. Especially given that it never stopped foaming, despite a slight subsiding around the hop additions it kept foaming throughout.

Now I don't do a lot of wheat based beers at all, and this is the first for about 5 months on this rig. It was possibly more noticeable with the small hole in the bag and the lower headspace on the boil.

 

[mofox1]

I reckon your on to something there. My boil yesterday had foam for longer than usual... except it was more like 10 mins vs the usual 5 or whatever.

The 52% rye/wheat seems the likely culprit

 

[wessmith]

Who is doing a starch test? Sounds a bit like a blue mash to me.

Wes

 

[MHB]

Who is doing a starch test? Sounds a bit like a blue mash to me.

Wes

Very good point, haven't seen one in the kettle for a long time, but then I do, do starch tests so not likely to any time soon.
Nothing like a couple of decades experience to point out what should have been bloody obvious, thanks Wes.
Mark

 

[jimmy_jangles]

pardon my ignorance....what is a blue mash?

 

[MHB]

A mash that still sends Iodine solution Blue, indicates unconverted starch in the wort.
If you do everything right it is about this obvious.

Mark

 

[brewologist]

Just speculating here but wouldn't it be when (for any number of reasons) the brewer hasn't got full conversion in the mashing process turning the starch from the grain into sugars.

 

[jimmy_jangles]

A mash that still sends Iodine solution Blue, indicates unconverted starch in the wort.
If you do everything right it is about this obvious.

IMG_6360.JPG
Mark

thanks mark!

 

[Danscraftbeer]

My experience. I boil each run off in batch sparging. It gets over the hot break foam each addition rather than one big foamy hot break.

and! Why remove anything?
Thats all good sweet malty sugar I think its crazy to remove anything!

 

[mofox1]

Hmm. No starch test last brew, it was almost 2hrs around 65C. Figured no point, but could be wrong... Would large amounts of wheat and rye cause excessively longer conversion times?

The only times I have bothered with a starch test is for the sub 60 min mash, or if it's a low mash. So far the only positive test for starch has been my control just after mashing in.

 

[mckenry]

This doesnt help the OP's problem. but I just want to point out a common misunderstanding.

Foam is not hot break. Hot break does not cause foam. They are different and separate. They can occur at the same time, but foam usually occurs first.

 

[KevinR]

Where do you get iodine. Chemist only had ointment type stuff

 

[luggy]

Where do you get iodine. Chemist only had ointment type stuff

I got mine from an online chemist

 

[MHB]

Lots of things can cause starch to be present in the kettle wort.
Dough balls, where the malt inside the ball doesn't get wet and mashed at the same speed as the main mash, starch is leached out during mash-out and sparging.
Mashing in too hot and killing off a lot of the enzymes, particularly b-amylase, can be a big problem especially for those brewers trying to make 23L of wort in a 20L pot, have a hard look at the strike water temperature required to mash in at 65oC with a L:G around 2:1.
Over sparging or sparging too hot, there is always some un-converted/un-gelatinised starch in the malt (there is even a test to measure how much (see small starch granules)) these can be eluted into the wort under some conditions.
Getting too much malt into the kettle, has the same effect as over sparging, in that starch will be extracted into the wort when there are no active enzymes to convert it.
Mark