Liquid loss on the boil

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bigfrogs

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What amount of liquid loss do you guys experience on the boil?? I boil in a 32ltr brupacs wort boiler inside on my stove under an extractor fan and end up loosing over a third.My last brew was a Brewdog pre 2010 Punkd IPA and I ended up with 19lts of wort from a start of around 31 ltrs on a 75min boil and 30min steap. There was a 170g hop bill which soaked up a bit of wort but I still had to top up 3.5lts to get my predicted OG and 22.5ltr volume.
Is there anything I can do to limit the liquid loss on the boil or is it just one of those things that happen?
Cheers Andy
 
Im afraid not, its down to "one of those things". After a few brews you tend to know what your losses are and compensate. There is no problem in "back-liquoring" to get your OG correct.
 
You must have a very ferocious boil. I always think my Ace boiler is a bit too fierce but I don't lose anything like that, usually just a couple kettle-fulls of boiling water to top it up at the end.
 
You must have a very ferocious boil. I always think my Ace boiler is a bit too fierce but I don't lose anything like that, usually just a couple kettle-fulls of boiling water to top it up at the end.

I agree with these sentiments!

There is a heck of a difference between the normally recommended "rolling boil" and the "boil the Bejazus out of it" that loses a third of your wort.

I boil outside in all weathers and I doubt if I lose much more that 3 litres during a 90 minute boil from a 25 litre starting point.

I strongly suggest that you look at reducing the amount of heat being put into the wort. :thumb:
 
like you guys say,depends on the boil. i used to boil on the hob on a double wok ring, thought it brilliant, wow did it boil, now i use electric and it still boils,just more like a threat of a boil, so now i dont use loose as much.
 
Being picky.....A simmer, rolling, full on volcano...are all the same temps. It cant get any hotter. Obviously the more you boil, the more sugar/water ratio and the temp will go up, but only by a few oC
 
Couple of things you could do, first cut your boil time down to 60 mins, and put a lid on your pot. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, it's not a problem to liquor back, or sparge a bit longer so you have a larger preboil volume.

My boil off rate is about 3-4 litres/hour fwiw.
 
Dont put a lid on your boil, you want to drive off all the volatile compounds in the hops

You don't want to drive off hop compounds, however SMM or DMS yes. About 15 mins is generally accepted to be enough time for that to happen, though I don't think it's as big a problem as we're told.
 
You don't want to drive off hop compounds, however SMM or DMS yes. About 15 mins is generally accepted to be enough time for that to happen, though I don't think it's as big a problem as we're told.

Slightly off post.....The Anatomy of a Hop ....Take one hop cone...peel back the outer petals and you will see the Lupus (this is like a yellow dust) this is what we want in our beer. The outer petals contain volatile compouds (we dont want this) but as there is no way of seperating the two, we have to brew with the whole cone. The outer petals just taste like old grass cuttings. By boiling your wort the volatile compounds are boiled off, before the good stuff does. that is why you should never put a lid on a boil.
 
Slightly off post.....The Anatomy of a Hop ....Take one hop cone...peel back the outer petals and you will see the Lupus (this is like a yellow dust) this is what we want in our beer. The outer petals contain volatile compouds (we dont want this) but as there is no way of seperating the two, we have to brew with the whole cone. The outer petals just taste like old grass cuttings. By boiling your wort the volatile compounds are boiled off, before the good stuff does. that is why you should never put a lid on a boil.

I disagree, people go to great effort to try to minimise the loss of volatile hop compounds, ie. late hopping, 80° steeping, dry hopping after fermentation etc.

Edit to add: To the OP, it's fine to leave the lid on, there will be enough steam escaping to carry away unwanted volatiles from the malt, however if you are concerned just put it partially on or take it off for the last 15 mins.
 
Can a good strong boil help with caramelization of the malt flavours? I think you get a deeper colour off your speciality malts than if the boil was just ticking over.
I start with about 29L and will often end up with 20ish
 
I disagree, people go to great effort to try to minimise the loss of volatile hop compounds, ie. late hopping, 80° steeping, dry hopping after fermentation etc.

Edit to add: To the OP, it's fine to leave the lid on, there will be enough steam escaping to carry away unwanted volatiles from the malt, however if you are concerned just put it partially on or take it off for the last 15 mins.

Why would you want to loose the volatile hop flavours in your brew.
Volatiles in your malt ?
WTF are you talking about.
Late hopping/dry hopping.
Can you please quote your research, Id love to see this.
 
Can a good strong boil help with caramelization of the malt flavours? I think you get a deeper colour off your speciality malts than if the boil was just ticking over.
I start with about 29L and will often end up with 20ish

Definitely, one of the finest beers around, Jakehead IPA, has a rich sweet matly backbone and loads of hops. The brewer told me he achieves this simply by a longer boil of Golden promise giving the caramel sweetness.
 
Are you sure the markings are correct on your boiler?

I must admit theres a lot of guess work there! My pan is 32l which gets fairly close to the top. I normaly top up as I go and know that 11cm down from the top is 23l. Recently ive not toped up so I can add hot water to my wort when pitching yeast(I no chill). The last batch was just over 20 on the fv.
 
Definitely, one of the finest beers around, Jakehead IPA, has a rich sweet matly backbone and loads of hops. The brewer told me he achieves this simply by a longer boil of Golden promise giving the caramel sweetness.

That's what I thought. Some times when I see some of these cheap electric systems on you tube I shudder at the lack of boil.
Also want to try the "reduce the first runnings method" one day.
 
jonnyboy1965 said:
WTF are you talking about.
Well since you asked nicely...

Why would you want to loose the volatile hop flavours in your brew.
Good question, I don't want to lose them but apparently you do, let me remind you of your earlier post:
jonnyboy1965 said:
you want to drive off all the volatile compounds in the hops

Volatiles in the malt however that you do want to get rid of are DMS and its precursor SMM.

jonnyboy1965 said:
Late hopping/dry hopping.
These are methods employed to preserve those precious and delicious volatile hop compounds.
 

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