BeerBorg

so yesterday I was all stoked that I was going to brew a 30 minute beer. what was supposed to be a time of happiness though quickly turned into frustration and depression. all I wanted to do was bring 3 gallons of water to boil. ive got one of those pos flat top glass topped stoves now. you know.. the kind with sensors for the glass getting too hot that cycle the power to the burner up and down and up and down and... never reach boiling temp???

after one hour ... on full.... the temp ONLY REACHED 210F. . . and refused to go any higher. I couldn't get a boil. more like an anemic, pukey low simmer. so I made the beer anyway.. and... because I had accounted for about a half gallon BOIL OFF (shaking fist at sky)... which I didn't reach... my OG came out way too low.

add to it that the lhbs gave me one of the steeping grains wrong ... :/

i'm going to 'feed' the yeast some of that crappy dark Belgian sugar I have from a year ago once krausen ever developes and falls. maybe I can salvage this 'rye stout' and make it a dry rye stout.

Sorry about the brew day woes. Though I did chuckle at (shaking fist at sky), been there done that.
Maybe look into a heat stick to help get up to boil if propane and outside aren't an option.

I've had that problem too. There may be a solution. The pot has to be no larger than the ring, or the pot bottom transfers heat to the surrounding glass. The pot bottom also has to be dead flat for good contact. My stove is fairly new, but will boil about 7 gallons on "speed heat", with the right pot.

I had that same issue for the longest time. I realized I had to boil about 2-2.5 gallons at max and that was with keeping a lid about half on. Spin it in to a positive..... Might be time for a bayou classic outdoor cooker

Inkleg wrote:Maybe look into a heat stick to help get up to boil if propane and outside aren't an option.

Russki wrote up a How to article on building a heat stick. It's relatively inexpensive and would help you achieve maximum boil.

Check it out here ====> http://www.beerborg.com/index/2013/01/h ... heatstick/

I have one of those flat glass top stoves too... hate the thing. I can get a good boil, but only with a lid on. I did that once for an all grain batch, got to a boil, put grains in, left on high (with lid off with grain in) and all I could get was a strong simmer. Next batch, I picked up a burner for outside. I can get a boil going outside even during the winter as long as it is protected from the wind. Eventually I want to build an eBIAB unit. Someday.... lol

I feel your pain, buddy. That's one of the main reasons I can't/don't do 5 gallon batches (fortunately, I prefer smaller batches anyway). I tried to do a boil for a 5 gallon batch on my glass-top stove once and it was a looooooong, arduous process just trying to get it up to boil. Keeping the lid on definitely helped, but as soon as I added malt extract, I lost my boil and it took another 10 minutes to get it back. ARGH! *shakes fist at sky*

I'd recommend buying the induction cooktop like the one I bought it's over 90% more efficient is 1300 watts and will easily boil three gallons of water and it cost $99.00 at Target.

ScrewyBrewer wrote:I'd recommend buying the induction cooktop like the one I bought it's over 90% more efficient is 1300 watts and will easily boil three gallons of water and it cost $99.00 at Target.

brewday-9sml.jpg

I've not used one of these before, but I understand that you need to use a steel/stainless pot/pan on them for the conduction heat to work properly. Aluminium pots and pans don't work.

LouieMacGoo wrote:

ScrewyBrewer wrote:I'd recommend buying the induction cooktop like the one I bought it's over 90% more efficient is 1300 watts and will easily boil three gallons of water and it cost $99.00 at Target.

brewday-9sml.jpg

I've not used one of these before, but I understand that you need to use a steel/stainless pot/pan on them for the conduction heat to work properly. Aluminium pots and pans don't work.

I used a stainless steel pot with an aluminum clad bottom and it worked perfectly. The unit will actually let you know if the pot isn't compatible with an induction cook top. According to the instructions that came with the unit all a pot has to do to work is to be magnetic. Having TIG welded a lot of type 316L stainless steel in a past life I know that magnets won't stick to it. But I've also learned that magnets do stick to a ton of pots, sinks and tables sold as stainless steel. There are pots marked with an induction compatible symbol on them but the one that worked for me didn't have the symbol but it does work.

A lot of pot bottoms, even on aluminum pots are clad with various metals, as some take up the heat quickly, some help distribute it evenly, and some to hold onto it. So if your lucky the pot can work on an induction burner.

after week one, I took about a half lb of the crappy Belgian dark sugar (solid) I had laying around... boiled some water and added the sugar, let it cool overnight. I added it to the wort.

2 weeks later.. bottled it. final grav 1.01. tasted the sample:

I shall call this Satan's Soy Sauce Stout or Rye You Do This To Me Stout. lol.. it smells like and looks like soy sauce. the taste is not bad for a sample. definitely has a rye presence and the warrior hops really added some bitter. it has the dryness I expected from the sugar addition. it should be ok at the least if not good.

lesson learned: beer is really hard to screw totally up since the yeast are doing all the real work. everything can be fixed or salvaged... usually.

LouieMacGoo wrote:

ScrewyBrewer wrote:I'd recommend buying the induction cooktop like the one I bought it's over 90% more efficient is 1300 watts and will easily boil three gallons of water and it cost $99.00 at Target.

brewday-9sml.jpg

I've not used one of these before, but I understand that you need to use a steel/stainless pot/pan on them for the conduction heat to work properly. Aluminium pots and pans don't work.

Wife bought that deal as seen on tv for home and camper. They do sell adapters technical name Induction Interface Disk that are magnetic to turn the unit on and you can use any type of cookware.
http://www.amazon.com/Max-Burton-6010-I ... B00213L3PK

FWIW, if it's an extract beer or an extract with a small steep - so you do not need to boil off DMS precursors - then getting it to 190+ will extract the IBUs just fine.

One of those new fangled beer making machines doesn't actually boil either and it's actually an AG machine, so the whole DMS precursor needing an actual rolling boil might even be crap that we just think is needed because we were told that by someone who was told that by someone blah blah...

mashani wrote:FWIW, if it's an extract beer or an extract with a small steep - so you do not need to boil off DMS precursors - then getting it to 190+ will extract the IBUs just fine.

One of those new fangled beer making machines doesn't actually boil either and it's actually an AG machine, so the whole DMS precursor needing an actual rolling boil might even be crap that we just think is needed because we were told that by someone who was told that by someone blah blah...

good point. like squeezing the grains was suppose to be bad