My Kettle Boil Off Experience

[Mike at Bay]

Hey gang, I use a big 15 gal Bayou kettle and a propane burner. My last brew seemed to come up short on volume. So today I loaded 8 gallons into the kettle. it took about 30 mins to get the rolling boil and then I boiled for 60 mins. It was a fairly aggressive boil but not unlike what I have done in the past. End result is 5.5 gallons of water in the kettle. So losing 2.5 gals in a 60 min boil seems like a lot. Again this was just a boil off so no mashing or sediment at the end.

I did this with the intent of updating my equipment profile so I can get better at hitting numbers. Now I am concerned that my boils may be too aggressive.

Anyone have similar experience of boiling off 2.5 gals?

 

[J A]

I have an electric 15 gallon and can control the boil carefully. I have 6 quarts in my profile and I think that's a little low sometimes. I don't boil aggressively and it's not really necessary. As long as there's good movement with a little bit of breaking the surface, that's fine. If it's jumping pretty actively, you could consider backing off a little. It's a little hard to really dial in the boil with a burner but if you eased off and got 2 gallons boil off, I'd say that's not bad.

 

[Mike at Bay]

I have an electric 15 gallon and can control the boil carefully. I have 6 quarts in my profile and I think that's a little low sometimes. I don't boil aggressively and it's not really necessary. As long as there's good movement with a little bit of breaking the surface, that's fine. If it's jumping pretty actively, you could consider backing off a little. It's a little hard to really dial in the boil with a burner but if you eased off and got 2 gallons boil off, I'd say that's not bad.

Thanks I am fighting with the water volumes tools a bit. Seems like the Quick Water Requirement numbers are a little different that the recipe volumes. I will keep working at it and figure it out. I seem to change things that are changing other things. So if start wanting 5.2g in fermentor....I would add to that the 2 gal loss at boil off....Maybe almost a gal lost to grain absorption (according to quick water)....ultimatley that gets me to something like 8.28 and now with a 5.6 ph that I can live with. I plugged in the 5.2 batch and the 7.25 pre boil.

 

[J A]

Thanks I am fighting with the water volumes tools a bit. Seems like the Quick Water Requirement numbers are a little different that the recipe volumes. I will keep working at it and figure it out. I seem to change things that are changing other things. So if start wanting 5.2g in fermentor....I would add to that the 2 gal loss at boil off....Maybe almost a gal lost to grain absorption (according to quick water)....ultimatley that gets me to something like 8.28 and now with a 5.6 ph that I can live with. I plugged in the 5.2 batch and the 7.25 pre boil.

It takes a bit to get all the parameters lined up but once you have an equipment profile that matches up pretty well with your real-world numbers in terms of volumes and losses, things lay out pretty nicely and predictably. I believe there are tutorials here on the site for most of the stuff you're dealing with. Check into those resources and things may start to make more sense.

 

[Minbari]

Too much heat. should be able to get around 1gal/hr.

Does it hurt anything? No! Just have to add more water to compensate

 

[J A]

Too much heat. should be able to get around 1gal/hr.

Does it hurt anything? No! Just have to add more water to compensate

I think that's about right for a 10 gallon pot but for the 15 gallon ones, it's tough to keep it to 1 gallon per hour. Mine is pretty consistent a around 6 quarts with controllable electric heating.

 

[Brew Cat]

humidity and elevation will affect boil off but it does seem excesive

 

[Dave Y]

+1 electric kettle here too. I'm not 100% confident boiling at less than 100% would be as consistent as I'd like, so I set to max and boil there. I suppose I could make some runs doing lower power and see if I could sustain the boil at less and save some water, but right now I'm hitting about 1.7 - 1.75 gallon boil off.

The old saying is not 'now you're cooking with electric' it's 'now you're cooking with gas'

Now you know why.

 

[Donoroto]

Thanks I am fighting with the water volumes tools a bit. Seems like the Quick Water Requirement numbers are a little different that the recipe volumes. I will keep working at it and figure it out. I seem to change things that are changing other things. So if start wanting 5.2g in fermentor....I would add to that the 2 gal loss at boil off....Maybe almost a gal lost to grain absorption (according to quick water)....ultimatley that gets me to something like 8.28 and now with a 5.6 ph that I can live with. I plugged in the 5.2 batch and the 7.25 pre boil.

Beware the QWR numbers, unless you hit the sweet spot of accuracy, they’ll be close but off by a bit.

After a few dozen brews, I have my own water requirements and I’m usually within a quart of what I predicted, so I don’t use the quick water requirements anymore

 

[Bigbre04]

i started at 76 gals full kettle, but i was not getting full kegs at the end of the boil, upped my total volume to 80 and now i generally get 4 full kegs. i would guess that i am boiling off/loosing to the whirlpool/hop loss in the kettle atleast 4 gals of liquid.

so I am getting very close to 62gals of finished beer on a dryhopped large IPA(which is my lowest total yield due to hop loss).

this means that i am loosing 18 gals between boil off, hops, dryhop, whirlpool, samples, etc.

for my system that means that i am loosing roughly 22.5% of my total starting kettle volume.

not sure if that helps or not???

in a previous life we expected to boil off 100 gals per 30bbl batch. i think we were shooting for roughly 1000gals to the fermenters and we filled the kettle to 1120 as i recall?

 

[Dave Y]

not sure if that helps or not???

It definitely confuses me.
You're launching a volley of arrows? At who?

i am loosing 18 gals between boil off, hops, dryhop, whirlpool, samples, etc

i am loosing roughly 22.5% of my total starting kettle volume

#RightWordsMatter
#ProperDictionMatters
#Beefin'



Actually the percentage is helpful, illustrating I'm boiling off way more by percentage. I do have to get some temp readings on my kettles, respectively now that I have new thermometers, if I have time I may try a boil off run.

 

[Brew Cat]

Im loosing between 18% and 20%
I don't think it matters as long as you know what it is and take note