Maximum Boil Volume?

[koongara]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of upping my batch size (people keep drinking all my beer). Can anyone give me an idea of what the maximum boil volume is for a converted keg kettle?

At present the mash tun is the limiting factor for bigger beers however I still have some room in my kettle, just whant to see how much I can get out of the my setup before I spend some cash and get bigger.

Cheers

 

[Inge]

40 odd litres should not pose too much of a problem.

 

[devo]

...so long as you keep a constant watch for boil over.

 

[koongara]

thats what I'm thinking about, boil over sucks arse

 

[reviled]

thats what I'm thinking about, boil over sucks arse

Pffft Boil over schmoil over... I have a 30 litre pot and do 25-26 litre boils... I reckon you could easy get away with 40 litres in a 50 litre keggle without worrying??

 

[raven19]

Especially if heated with gas - as if watched closely can be turned to low if bubbling too much and about to boil over...?

 

[Fents]

i think it all depends on the shape of your keggle and how its been cut - my old one had the whole top chopped straight off incl the handles you would use to pick the thing up with and i reckon i would loose say maybe 2-3 litres more space than someone who just cut a hole in the top and left the handles on it and not just chopped the whole lot of.

With mine i can pre boil 42L's but i have to watch it like an eagle and usually end up with 35-37L's post boil depending on how hard i boil.

 

[koongara]

still have the handles and the lip on mine so I guess careful watching is in order to make sure it dosent boil over!

 

[rude]

cant you get anti foam ( yeast derivitive ) to stop boil overs

 

[TidalPete]

cant you get anti foam ( yeast derivitive ) to stop boil overs

Sprayer full of water does it. 45 litre boils should be ok. Be carefull when adding the hops.

TP :beer:

 

[Beejay]

Adding some of your hops as first wort hops will greatly lessen the boil over likelihood. I have been doing so now for well over a year and, unless you are boiling way too fast, the kettle never looks like actually boiling over, even on subsequent additions of hops, whirlfloc, etc. Give FWH a go, simply move some of your aroma / flavour hops to the kettle at the beginning of lautering. MAGIC!!!

 

[Rustyc30]

Had a go over the weekend at a big boil in a keggle and ended up doing 46l and found it quite easy had a spray bottle on hand with water and didn't pump up the NASA as high as I normally do to start the boil so it took about 5-10 min longer to get to the boil but other then that no issue now going to do double batches for every time yeah more beer

 

[sinkas]

Ausdb reckons he boiled 46.5 litres or somthing in one

 

[mika]

I use a keggle with anitfoam and have ~32L pre-boil and that sucker will jump out of the keggle no dramas, specially with the hop additions. But then I tend to boil fairly hard, maybe harder than I should but I only record ~15% evap.

 

[randyrob]

i did a brew in one yesterday, 45L preboil down to 40L in the fermenter

no spray bottle or antifoam just chucked 100g of pellets in when the boil started up no problems

Rob.

 

[mesa]

Seems to be the general feeling is "It depends how hard you boil". Just as a matter of interest, I remember reading that some commercial breweries (in the interest of energy savings etc) only have about a 4% evapouration rate. I guess at that point they have to worry about kettle shape and hop utilisation (as well as hot break formation, which I have the impression is linked to the "rollingness" of the boil). Anyone have any comments about hop utilisation verses evapouration rate on single verses double batches? Would utilisation be determined by kettle diameter and litres evapourated per hour rather than the percentage evapouration?

I guess what I'm getting at is you may be able to drop your evapouration rate in order to get more beer out of a limited kettle as long as you are aware that hot break and hop utilisation may suffer.

 

[Beejay]

You can do what many in the Illawarra Brewers Union, and many others, do and that is to do a higher gravity boil. In my keggle I boil approx 40 litres of wort at a higher OG. After the boil, I have lost 2L to evaporation (yes only 5% / hour as only a rolling boil is required for break, etc) , 1.5L to hops/ trub/ break, about 2L for cooling. This leaves me with 34L going straight into 2 x cubes to either 1. cool for the next day to then pitch or 2. store for longer term for when I need beer. Upon placing into the fermenter, I simply add 4 litres of water (per cxube) to bring the vol in fermenter up to 21L (giving a perfect keg full after fermentation) and to bring the gravity to the desired level. Some of the IBU'ers even dilute the wort after fermentation with no problems at all (though I have never tried this myself).

The point is that high gravity boils is what most major breweries do in order to maximise output for their equipment. It works well for me and all of the other IBU'ers that do so (which is most of us). The only downside is hop utilisation, but it takes only a few more grams of extra bittering hops required to account for the higher gravity. Promash / Beersmith all calc this well.

Comfort level boiling 40L in a 50L keggle? No problem :beerbang: