What's your worst boil over?

So I had my first boil over in a couple years of brewing this weekend, outside thankfully. My own fault just doing other things while the water was coming to a boil. I use a wireless digital thermometer and had an alarm set for 202F. When I went outside as the alarm started it was just coming out of the lid and down the side of the kettle, temp was 205-207F and didn't seem like a full rolling boil. I was lucky, but definitely a learning experience. I was wondering what was the worst boil over you have had, if any?

My worst was actually while making a half gallon yeast starter. I brew outside too, but I make my starters on the kitchen stove. I turned my back to start prepping an ice bath and I hear a loud HISSSSSS! ...sticky nasty burnt smelling DME wort all over the stove. SWMBO was highly upset.

I was boiling a 3bbl batch with the hatch closed on an IPA and was setting up the heat exchange for sanitization which is just below the hatch. No big deal done it a hundred times before, but this time it has decided to boil over right as I am attaching a hose and drop wort right onto my arm. It took a second to sink in and then it took a little more to connect with how to stop it.

Yeah that was a fun cleanup, luckily no major burns or major loss of wort either.

Yep, nothing worse than a boilover on a stove. That sticky mess just gets everywhere and dries to a rock hard residue quickly. I'm going to have to replace the trays on ours when we move.

Boil over on your arm sounds painful and the sticky mess on the stove sounds like you may have had to re-justify the hobby to the wife.

I didn't know that boiling with a lid on the kettle was a bad thing to do so on my second brew I left the lid on. Looked like a volcano erupted all over the stove, was not fun to clean up

Mine was a boil over doing a starter as well. Took almost two hours to clean the stove, it got baked on pretty good. Starter and subsequent beer turned out ok though.

Worst ever? Well, aside from the indoor ones that make a huge mess, the worst volume-wise was an outdoor batch.

I was starting with 6.5 gallons in a keggle, and walked away to get something inside because it wasn't boiling yet. When I walked back out, the wort was cascading over the top like a huge volcano, and pouring down the concrete.

I turned off the flame, and had about 3 gallons left in the pot. Ended up with a 2 gallon batch.

You really can boil over a 5 gallon batch in a keg. For future reference.

Add my name to the list of starter boilovers. I was making my first starter in an erlenmeyer on the stove. Got the water boiling real good and dumped in the DME. Remember those baking soda volcanoes from grade school? Imaging a cross between than and a diet coke/mentos fountain. Fairly entertaining, were it not for the mess it left.

Didn't even occur to me to NOT dump a bunch of DME into boiling water. Oops.

stevo4361 said:

Mine was a boil over doing a starter as well. Took almost two hours to clean the stove, it got baked on pretty good. Starter and subsequent beer turned out ok though.

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Same here it was when I decided mid boil that I needed to drop my stir bar in the flask to sterilize it. It made a volcano eruption out the top.

I've never had a boilover. I know where to set the stove or the propane for a rolling boil at various volumes, set to those temps, and when it's ready, a gentle boil starts.

Chrisl77 said:

Same here it was when I decided mid boil that I needed to drop my stir bar in the flask to sterilize it. It made a volcano eruption out the top.

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This right here!

Only real boilover I ever had was this exacty. Granted....I've gotten close a couple times with first hop additions too.