Burnt bottom!

Buffers brewery said:

How much water is that for? I have a habit of treating 8 gallons of water prior to a brew day, you never know when you might need a drop more

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I should have mentioned that. 30l

At 8gall 36l is 49.38ml

First outing of the Digiboil today. Still managed to burn.....or rather singe the bottom.

Mainly because I thought I needed to boil off some excess water and left it to boil too long at too high a heat. Will do better next time

P.S. it cleaned off a lot easier and wasn't as beadly burnt as the previous boiler.

Buffers brewery said:

First outing of the Digiboil today. Still managed to boil.....or rather singe the bottom.
View attachment 91136
Mainly because I thought I needed to boil off some excess water and left it to boil too long at too high a heat. Will do better next time

P.S. it cleaned off a lot easier and wasn't as beadly burnt as the previous boiler.

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Some residue like this is perfectly normal. Baked on black like the high density elements is what ruins a wort.

Agreed. That smallish amount of brown residue is normal.

Agree too! Some matter collecting is inevitable ... it's the grain proteins precipitating out ("break"). I wipe it off with one of those soft microfibre clothes. This if the inside of my Grainfather after numerous brews:



Given the amount of burning on @Buffers brewery's earlier pic, I think you can safely say that older boiler was getting way too hot, or ... the water treatment then was ineffective!

Yeah, I know, so I have a "hard water" prejudice! And "chalk" precipitating out and sticking to the hot element surface will roughen up the surface, cause the break to stick to it, where it will burn. But there's a problem with that: We treat the water so we are all using near enough the same water for a particular beer. The "hardness" of the original water has nowt to do with it. UNLESS, you weren't treating your sparge water, at least by acidifing it (considered by some to be unnecessary, but here we have an example where it would be necessary!), or whatever the previous water treatment, it wasn't having the desired effect (still loads of "chalk" in the water to precipitate out on boiling).

I've had this happen regularly with my Klarstein Maischfest. I recently added a bazooka filter, but this meant that the grain basket was sitting on it, so I used three short pieces of 3/4" plumbing pipe (plastic) to raise the basket above the filter. Lo and behold, no burn marks. My conclusion is that the base of the grain basket is too close to the heat (~2cm) and this was causing the burning as there wasn't enough circulation room under it.

One swallow does not make a summer, so I'll see if this continues to be the solution I think it is.

Larse said:

I've had this happen regularly with my Klarstein Maischfest. I recently added a bazooka filter, but this meant that the grain basket was sitting on it, so I used three short pieces of 3/4" plumbing pipe (plastic) to raise the basket above the filter. Lo and behold, no burn marks. My conclusion is that the base of the grain basket is too close to the heat (~2cm) and this was causing the burning as there wasn't enough circulation room under it.

One swallow does not make a summer, so I'll see if this continues to be the solution I think it is.

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I was thinking about this as I had the same problem.
I've stopped it by putting a bag in the bin. I find it makes it easier to sparge too. The holes are too big and finer particles fall through the holes and burn on the bottom.

I've said this before, I'd really like a proper fine mesh bin for it. But I can't find one that fits.

I only suffered a burnt bottom once.
I was about 2 years old and sat on a one bar electric fire, (briefly).

crowcrow said:

On my Klarstein I get a good boil on 1500w - so I just leave at that now - but used to boil at 3000w - and I'd always get some burn stuff when I cleaned up. It comes off easily if you cover it with white vinegar and leave it for 24 hours.

Can't say I noticed a taste from it though.

I barely get any burnt on bits with the 1500w boil now

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Hi,

I actually got 2 times this problem (on the Brewmonk). The big problem in the end is not really the burn, but the fact that the burn switch on the security alert and shut down the electricity of the set-up. really annoying. As @crowcrow said, I also go to 1400 W during the mash (Max is 2500W heating). What I usually do, I heat the water with full power (2500W), then short before the temperature is reach, I go down to 1400W and then after 10 min, I add the grain.

Whether its electric or gas, a base thick enough to evenly spread the heat, will always be better. With plenty of thermal mass, a mark:space switching power control, with say a 30 sec or 1 min cycle, shouldn't give much temperature variation. Whereas it would, with just a lightweight bare element.

Only burning I've had, seems to be mostly due to settled flour or particles, forming an insulating layer, rather than sugars in the wort. But not sure if your kettle burning, was with an all grain, or extract brew.

Had an incinerated bottom incident in, my BZgen4 (with false bottom and heat exchanger dish), with an overheat shutdown for a while during boil. Shutdown happens at a base temp of around 120°C.
Afterwards I found there was a 6mm deep burnt black crust, over nearly the entire base. Apart from a few narrow channels, that must have been kept clear by the (slow) mash recirculation.
23l Brew was a Weisenbock, (6.5kg grain, 50% wheat), After vigerous drill stirring at dough in, it needed stirring multiple times due to slow recirculation /stuck mash . With all the stirring, lots of flour and small particles must have been carried through the malt pipe base, and false bottom, to settle out on the base.
Beer tasted extremely smokey. Ended up giving the entire batch away.

Revised method now, involves minimal gentle stirring. only at dough in, just to break up any dough balls.

It's not ideal that the BZ false bottom and HED dish, are covering it's heater base during the boil (though they catch some hop crud). Running recirculation during boil, helps avoid hotspots, but I occasionally still end up with a very thin 'tanned' layer in places.
If I had more room, I'd try separate mash; sparge water; and boil vessels.