Questions tagged [boilover]

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11 votes
4 answers
11k views

What is Fermcap-S and what does it do?

Lately I've been doing some very large boils -- 7 gallons in a 7.5 gallon kettle. To prevent boilovers, I've been using Fermcap-s. It's great, and I've had no boilover problems, but I have no idea how ...
9 votes
4 answers
2k views

Pennies in the Boil

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?
2 votes
2 answers
319 views

How would I handle a boil-over and loss of hops?

I recently was brewing a 1 gallon kit from Northern Brewer (The White House Honey Ale kit) and instantly after adding the first packet of hops, the entire kettle boiled over. Absolutely instantly, ...
6 votes
6 answers
400 views

First batch tragedies?

Brewed my very first batch today. It is a stout and is sitting in my basement as I type. I would call the day a success--a whole lot more work than I thought. Hopefully only two things went wrong: ...
9 votes
2 answers
6k views

What are the harms of a boil over?

Besides forcing me to clean a lot more stuff than I would generally do, will a boil over harm my beer? I suppose I will loose a lot of the break material and according to brewstrong the break ...
6 votes
13 answers
7k views

How do you prevent boil-overs?

This is a shill question for Mark Taylor. I stumbled on his great tip about keeping a spray bottle on hand to prevent boil-overs while looking for advice on yeast re-use. The spray bottle worked ...
4 votes
1 answer
292 views

Does a single FermCap addition control both boilovers and blowoffs?

I love FermCap for controlling boilovers. I add a few drops (less than recommended) as the wort comes up to boiling. It allows me to do other things during the boil to shorten my brew day. Here's ...
6 votes
3 answers
537 views

Does anybody else skim the protein off the top of their boil?

I've been doing it lately, assuming it will reduce the amount of crap I have to filter out after the boil, and it seems to reduce the amount of head I get during the boil (less chance of a boil over). ...