To Vigorous A Boil

[Spartan 117]

Hey Guy's,

Made an amber ale the other day (first AG in about 6 months) and noticed that my burner was corking a lot better than normal and dring the boil the wort went nuts an was practically foam. so I'm just wondering if you can have to vigorous a boil or not.

Cheers

Aaron

 

[benno1973]

A more vigorous boil will reduce the final volume due to evap losses (and therefore concentrate the wort slightly), and I'd say it would alos increase the production of melanoidins. Fine in an amber or malty beer, but maybe out of place in a light lager for example. Can't think of any other downsides to too vigorous a boil, although I vaguely remember ThirstyBoy talking about it a couple of years ago in a thread. ill have a look and see if I can find it.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

too much heat load can do a few things along the lines of

Darken the wort
Increase melanoidin flavour
Generally mess with the flavour of more delicate beers
affect the haze and flavour stability of your beer
waste your gas .. which is one of the major expenses to this hobby

Too much heat flux through your pot can cause burn on, off flavours at the point of the burn and a hard to clean pot

And a stupidly vigorous boil can actually start to undo the dissolution of proteins. Re-dissolving them into the wort and at the very minimum subjecting the break to a serious beating and smashing it up into small and hard to separate bits.

Better too hard than too soft... but better just right than either. Turn down the gas a little.