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I've heard that adding cleaned pennies to the wort can help prevent boil-overs. I guess they could provide nucleation points- I dunno.

Any truth to this, or is it just an old wives' tail?

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  • Where'd you hear this? (Out of curiosity more than anything else)
    – hookedonwinter
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 23:51
  • Step 7 here
    – Fishtoaster
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 23:55
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    Adding pennies also has the benefit of contributing zinc, an essential nutrient, to the wort.
    – Brandon
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 3:56
  • weird, I just keep a spray bottle of water beside my kettle
    – Nathan Koop
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 15:10
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    Pennies are ghetto, I only add quarters or higher.
    – PMV
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 15:22

4 Answers 4

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In the fourth & final Brew Strong episode on high gravity brewing, Jamil, John, and Tasty touched briefly on using pre-1981 pennies in the boil to help provide minerals (Copper, Zinc) to the yeast to help them survive the stress of a big fermentation. (They mention it around the 30:00 mark.)

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    This is about the only thing I would think pennies would help with in making beer (except buying ingredients). My MLT has a copper manifold and after every brew its bright and shiny from the copper being stripped by the acidic wort.
    – KRock
    Commented Nov 24, 2010 at 20:51
  • Mosher also mentions this in Mastering Homebrew.
    – Jarrod Smith
    Commented Aug 3, 2016 at 20:58
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The effect that you are describing is that of adding a nucleation point (or site) to the kettle, as you said. A nucleation point provides a place for bubbles to form and release and will help to prevent boilovers. That being said, though, a penny (or a few pennies) will not have enough surface area to help a batch that large. At places that sell cooking gadgets, you can get a ceramic "boilover preventer". I have used these for cooking, and they work pretty well.

As for brewing, though, I have to recommend Fermcap-S. It is one of those things that once you use it, you will never know how you brewed without it. The cost is very minimal, when you determine how long a bottle lasts you. Last night's brew session, I realized I didn't have any and started without. I was having really bad foaming issues that was causing me to back off the boil, so I added a couple of Gas-X pills. In a pinch, this is something I have done a couple of times, and it works well - although not as good as Fermcap-S. Cost per batch will easily fall into favor of Fermcap-S, as well, when comparing the two.

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I tried it and didn't find it to prevent boilovers.

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    Me too. I'd think that with all the manifolds and pick up tubes in so many kettles I see we already have plenty of nucleation sites.
    – brewchez
    Commented Nov 26, 2010 at 3:00
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to prevent boil overs, I learned from my grandmother, use a boiling disk. It is a stainless steel, glass or ceramic disk with two notches in the edge. you put it in the pot at the start when the water begins to boil it "clatters" warning you the boil has started. It also breaks up the bubbles that form at the bottom of the pot and disperses them so you don't get those BIG bubbles exploding at the top, splashing liquid all over. Also called a "pot minder" sold on amazon ( about $5), Lehmans (glass about $2)

it works and can be sterilized and doesn't add chemicals to your brew.

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  • Pretty sure anything that sits at the bottom of a pot of boiling wort doesn't need to be sterilized! Rinse it off after use, sure, but I wouldn't sweat sanitizing it.
    – TMN
    Commented Aug 4, 2016 at 19:08

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