Does It Matter If It Takes Along Time To Reach Boil

[iralosavic]

Would a teflon cake tin be suitable as a floatie or would it have to be stainless?

To be honest I'd personally rather use stainless or even aluminium, but given the only tins I had in the kitchen were non-stick that's what I've been using so far - and with no obvious issues. The coating is designed to be both water and heat resistant, but I wouldn't take this option if stainless were available. We just don't know if any of the teflon or other chemicals are being released and what affect they would have on our health.

The best thing about using a floating tin is that you don't get any returning condensate (which can put the volatiles causing DMS back into your beer instead of sending it into the atomsphere) and it's about as cheap and easy a solution as you can get.

 

[chunckious]

To be honest I'd personally rather use stainless or even aluminium, but given the only tins I had in the kitchen were non-stick that's what I've been using so far - and with no obvious issues. The coating is designed to be both water and heat resistant, but I wouldn't take this option if stainless were available. We just don't know if any of the teflon or other chemicals are being released and what affect they would have on our health.

The best thing about using a floating tin is that you don't get any returning condensate (which can put the volatiles causing DMS back into your beer instead of sending it into the atomsphere) and it's about as cheap and easy a solution as you can get.

I'm getting pretty paranoid about it to be honest. I'm sure something is being leached but might not be at enough of a level to cause health risk. This is totally gut instinct. I wouldn't use alloy, they don't recommend boil tun in alloy.

 

[eviljesus]

According to the Teflon MSDS (http://www.cityplastics.com.au/pdf/teflon%20msds.pdf) 400 degrees C seems to be where the issues start to occur.

Also, it is listed on homedistiller (listed as PTFE, its proper name) as safe for alcohol and other solvents as well. (http://homedistiller.org/equip/materials). These guys are HARDCORE, almost to the point of ridiculous about their safety. Even though they have listed it as safe, they prefer to use flour dough (as gaskets) and copper for anything else. Anything 'synthetic' as such is discouraged.

If anything, I would be worried about possible lead in a lower grades of stainless steel, but in all honesty, I would have absolutely no problems using either. The risk from each would be almost beyond negligible.

 

[thylacine]

For those of us with underpowered systems, best thing ever is this:

Use whatever floating device you like, so long as the material is foodsafe. My 2200w element went from being unable to even maintain a boil with the lid off (and my keggle IS insulated), to being both able to get to the boil quicker AND able to maintain a sufficiently vigurous boil too.

I'd definitely look at insulating the pot as well, if not first, as you lose a fair bit of energy efficiency through the sides and it's cheap to fix - no where near as much energy as through the liquid surface and no where near as cheap as a disposable pie tin (if that were the path you chose) though!

I have no personal experience FWHing, but I agree with Wolfy in that the longer exposure to mash+ tempuratures will have a measurable impact on the end result. However, this doesn't mean to say that you can't work around it. If, even after trying out my suggestions (if you like), your ramp to boil time is still slow, you simply take tasting notes against your recipe and adjust your hop quantities accordingly the next time -and take note of the disparity between expected and actual (perceived) bitterness to apply it to other recipes.

My stovetop BIAB, with Big W pot used a 'floatie' to assist the boil. Now, a Woolies sourced modified cooling rack holds a suspended Swiss voille hopsack performs the same benefit. Additionally, the rack acts as a draining/support base for the pulled grain bag.