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No hot break
I brewed beer years ago and had a reasonable amount of success and only once did I make a mess during my hot break (learned my lesson). I just brewed my first batch in a long time last night and I'm wondering if my poor gas stove was just overworked and couldn't get my 4 gallon boil vigorous enough. I expected it to break and almost boil over so I watched it like a hawk. No break!?!? What happened and is this a bad thing?
It should break, but it doesn't necessarily have to boil over. If you're getting a rolling boil and some foam building up in the beginning you should be fine. Sometimes the break lasts 5 minutes sometimes 20, depends on how much protein wen tinto the wort. As long as the surface isn't smooth and not bubbling you should be boiling hard enough to coagulate the break and drive off DMS. Wheat beers tend to have a ferocious break while light ales have a quick flash of rising foam and then its over.
How did it turn out. Did you still make your brew or did you have to throw it away? Maybe you could use half amount of that liquid and try again. Hate to see that you would have to waste your efforts 
The outdoor turkey fryers work wonders for this overworked kitchen stove. My stove had a difficult time getting 2 gallons up to boil. 5+ would definitely be a no go. The turkey fryer and camp stove I use now both can get that much up to boil in a few minutes. At this time of year, the turkey fryers start popping up everywhere. It is also kind of nice not having to worry about making mess if you do have a boil over.
John, are you making 5 gal batches?
OK, thanks for the input, all. To answer questions. Batch is 5 gallons from extract with specialty grains in a grain bag. The extract was Coopers Amber if that makes any difference for the hot break. I tried to use 4 gallons for my wort and then added about a gallon and a half to replace the boil off and supplement to 5 gallons. The OG matched what the recipe said it should be. There really wasn't much of a foam on the top and I wouldn't call the boil vigorous or rolling, but it was boiling. Temp was as high as I could get it on the stove. I have a turkey fryer that I've been looking at, but it has an aluminum pot (good, no good?). I'll start another thread for that, but if you have answers to that question look in the equipment forum. Any answers as to whether I'm screwed on this batch would be appreciated. I did cool and pitch yeast (didn't know any different) and now it's bubbling away. This was brewed on Wednesday night. I should have results in about a month and a half. If this is a "bad thing" not having a real hot break, what could I possibly do to save it if anything. Thanks again.
The worst that could happen is you get a little more trub formation from not having a true hot break, an dyou might get some excess DMS if it wasn't boiled hard enough. DMS will give acooked vegetable flavor and aroma to the beer. I just thought I sucked at brewing until I got a propane cooker and started doing rolling full boils outside, no more cooked corn beer!
I'll see what happens when I bottle and finally taste this and make sure that I make notes on this so I understand what's going on when I taste this. Thanks a lot for the info. What are the initials for?
DMS= Dimethyl Sulfide
It is removed during the boil through evaporation, so a vigorous boil and lots of steam are a good thing. You will remove 1/2 the DMS in 40 minutes of a boil and 3/4 in 90 minutes, some people boil for 100 just to knock the DMS levels way down, unless it's a light light beer you won't taste it after a good 90 minute boil.
So why all the hubbub about 60 minute boils in the extract brewing recipes? That's pretty much standard right? The whole thing took longer for me to get to boils after anything less than boiling. Would this help? Like after steeping the grain sack to get to a boil took what seemed like forever. Then again when I added the LME. Well, it's got to be better beer than budweiser (not that pretty much any beer is ~BAD~, just some better than others) and I'll drink it to make sure I set the lesson hard. Next batch will be from my new turkey fryer. Thanks again.
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