Boiling with the lid on?

[Old Dub]

Evening

Everybody seems to boil the wort with the lid off but why?
Commercial brewery's or the ones i've poked my nose around seem to boil in sealed vessels

I get a better rolling boil with the lid on

Am i not helping my brew by leaving lid on? Its not a perfect seal so steam escapes

Any thoughts

 

[robsan77]

keeping the lid on means that the dms is not allowed to escape and the beer ends up with a cooked vegetable aroma. :sick: Most breweries have a chimeny which has a trap to catch any rolling back condensation and thus not letting go back into the beer.

 

[Dunfie]

One of the reasons for the boil is to allow the sulphurous compounds to escape. If you leave the lid on you end up with DMS (dimethyl sulphide) in the beer which is a really bitter astringent flavour.

I expect that the commercial brewers will be allowing the vapour to escape in some other manor. The really modern breweries are looking to reuse the heat from the boil so they will be harnessing that energy in some way.

 

[MikeB]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

 

[Dunfie]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

Not necessarily, the problem is that the vapour will condense on the lid and then drip back into the beer. As long as you leave some space for the bad guys to escape you should be fine. There are some on here who use a partial lid - I think Unclepumble has a setup like that.

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

Do it like I do, works great.

BB :thumb:

 

[Dunfie]

That looks great BB. :thumb:

 

[MikeB]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

Do it like I do, works great.

BB :thumb:

That looks brilliant, but don't you still get condensate dripping off the top back into the boil?

 

[mr_spin]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

Do it like I do, works great.

BB :thumb:

That looks brilliant, but don't you still get condensate dripping off the top back into the boil?

I have also copied BB's design for my kettle but recently decided to stop using this until I have nailed an astringency taste issue. After my last major brew, it looks like there is condensate dropping back in but I need to try and angle the collector dish so the condensate rolls around and away onto the lid..

Howerver, it certainly works well with getting rid of the steam.

 

[MikeB]

I have also copied BB's design for my kettle but recently decided to stop using this until I have nailed an astringency taste issue. After my last major brew, it looks like there is condensate dropping back in but I need to try and angle the collector dish so the condensate rolls around and away onto the lid..

Howerver, it certainly works well with getting rid of the steam.

Ahhhh, I see... so the bowl on top collects condensate which runs down the inside of it, and out onto the lid? Nice.

Wouldn't mind seeing more details of this if they're to hand?

 

[robsan77]

So presumably boiling with a lid half on, or a lid with a few largish holes, is just as bad?

Do it like I do, works great.

BB :thumb:

thats a sweet design :thumb: