boiling

[Ray Mason]

Hi guys, What is the best way to achieve a good rolling boil? I have a Ritchie boiler which is so slow at achieving temperatures most of my brewing day is spent waiting for it. Even heating from cold to sparge temperature (77c) takes almost two hours (45 seconds on, 155 seconds off, or worse). I became so frustrated with it that I by-passed the thermostat allowing the element to run continuously. Unfortunately because the boiler only contains 5.5 gallons you can guess what happened. The wife was not best pleased when a gallon or so of wort was deposited onto the kitchen floor when I left it for a few minutes. Sparging is also a problem as I have to stop at the final beer volume leaving lots of sugars behind (sparging stopped at 1015 having collected 5.5 gallons). Would it be best to sparge to collect two 3 gallons batches and boil each separately, hopping each with 50% of the hops, using 50% of the protofloc and reducing them to 2.5 gallons and mixing them in the FV? Or is there a better way? I don’t want to invest in a larger boiler, at present, so any other advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Ray.

[Deebee]

Ray,

I can see a couple of ways, you either have to make the recipe and boil in 2 parts ( so adjust hops for a brew length of say 12.5 liters and them make the same recipe twice. This way there is maybe the chance you can dough in whilst the first batch is cooling?

Otherwise there is always the making of the mango chutny barrel boiler that i have seen on the forums here.

As for me, i went to the tip and was lucky to find a 40 liter pot. i also found an old fire hose system compete with tap, cleaned both the pan and the tap, and got a workshop to weld the tap into the pan.

This sits nicely onto the normal domestic cooker, and with 15 liters space boil over has never been an issue.

Just a thought

[Ray Mason]

Thanks Deebee, I'll try a two stage brew first and if that doesn't work out i'll look for a mango chutny barrel on ebay and make a new boiler. Ray

[Scooby]

I brewed for years with a Bruheat boiler, the original one had an even smaller capacity. Sparge into the boiler until you have a manageable amount, then collect the rest in jugs or any suitable container. When the first violent boil has subsided top up with the spare wort, continue to do that throughout the boil replacing losses from evaporation.

You may also find that you fall short of your brew length due to losses to hops and dead space, for some time I sparged the hops through punctured tin foil, but stopped that preferring to top up with cold water in the fv.

The boil you get with the thermostat is adequate even though it cycles, a rolling boil isn't violent but a very gentle simmer. I don't know why yours takes so long to heat up as I never notice such long pauses with mine. (I still use the 30+yr old thermostat on my twin element boiler)

Two other things you can do to make it more efficient is to add some insulation camping mats or immersion heater insulation can be used to speed up heating and maintaining a rolling boil. You could add an extra element for even more rapid heat up.