My kettle has arrived!!!!

[MEB]

I've used my kettle for two brews now. It's an amazing piece of kit. The domed bottom is bloody great-all the break material settles in the bottom and the position of the outlet is perfect-allowing very little material to be drawn off. The filter filters hop cones excellently but doesn't cope so good with pellets. So i'll bag up my pellets-no issues there as they make a great soil conditioner and i always plump for cones if i can. :thumb:

Bad points-none so far. Except the gas burner took a few goes to get sorted as did the right levels for the boil. I still haven't remembered to write them down for next brew :whistle: As the kettle has a lid with a hole in the centre i boil with the lid on and the outlet opened. This gives me a much lower evaporation rate than i had before-which was up to 15% on ocasion. Now it seems to be about 5-6%. So i guess i have a dozen or so brews to get it all like clockwork again. Especially after the 1025 fiasco... :?

Good points-many so far.
Having the facility to boil 40-50L brews without fuss is just great. :party:
As is the domed bottom-what a bloody great thing that is. All the break material settles down into the concave base, with the outlet pipe just above the dome very little trub is drawn of into the FV. :geek:
Having a kettle that is not plastic and a bit 'debateable' makes for a happier brewday :thumb:
With a quick blast of the hose and a wipe with a cloth it's back to new.
It looks the part and is so well built that it is a joy to look at and own. :mrgreen:

 

[UserDeleted]

As the kettle has a lid with a hole in the centre i boil with the lid on and the outlet opened. This gives me a much lower evaporation rate than i had before-which was up to 15% on ocasion. Now it seems to be about 5-6%.

:hmm: :hmm: I don't wish to rain on your parade, especially with such a great boiler . . . . but

The important factor is thermal load . . . which is indicated by the amount of evaporation . . . . If you stick a lid on you don't cut down on evaporation it just condenses and falls back into the boiler, so although the evaporation rate appears lower the thermal load is really the same. . . . If you are really trying to lower evaporation rates, external kettles with a high Heat/Surface area ratio are used commercially . . . and you can reduce your true evaporation rate down to around 2% . . . beer stability does start to suffer at this point though.

 

[Vossy1]

I think MEB meant evapouration loss.

I read an article with regard lowering evapouration rate and it was quite interesting, especially as the tasting panel could percieve differences in the finished beers.

 

[UserDeleted]

I think MEB meant evapouration loss.

So did I. if you are boiling with the lid off and getting 15%, and putting the lid on gives you 10% you are not reducing the evaporation as the heat input (especially from an electric kettle) is the same . . . some of the evaporated liquid has returned to the kettle as condensate.

The problem with turning the gas down is that you reduce the ferocity of the boil which affects beer stability. There is a nice IBD article that describes experiments with low wort evaporation (~2% IIRC), but these use external high heat/large surface area external enclosed kettles for the heating, the main kettle is open and the wort is pumped around the system through the external kettle . . . but they are not just putting a lid on the kettle there is much more to it that that.

 

[Vossy1]

So did I. if you are boiling with the lid off and getting 15%, and putting the lid on gives you 10% you are not reducing the evaporation as the heat input (especially from an electric kettle) is the same . . . some of the evaporated liquid has returned to the kettle as condensate.

We're singing from the same hymn sheet but saying different things.
Evapouration loss and evapouration rate are very different.
Pressure, temperature, lid on and lid off, they will all affect loss from a system with a constant heat source, lidded kettles being less affected. Putting a lid onto a kettle actually increases the evapouration rate as there is less thermal loss to the environment, but decreases the evapouration loss as per condensate mentioned in your post.