Ash in the Wort

[meylo]

I was wrapping up the brew day, and cooling my wort with the chiller. Each time I use my brew kettle, along with my gas burner, the exterior of the kettle creates a layer of char/ash. It's never been a problem, I just rinse it off, some stays, no biggie.

So I stood there letting my chilled wort flow in to the brew bucket. It was a little windy out and so some of the char, from both the kettle's exterior and possibly the uncleaned surface started to fly into the bucket.

My question here: Should I be worried about a contamination?

 

[TechFanMD]

Highly unlikely. At the time your boiled ended, your kettle, inside and out, was pretty well heat sanitized. It seems unlikely that it would have picked up any nasties in those few minutes. If it did - it came from the breeze that is already blowing into your open kettle anyway (nasties adrift).

 

[IslandLizard]

As @TechFanMD said, it's all fine.

But you need to looking into reducing gas flow, increase air flow and/or clean the orifice. Yellow flames and soot deposits are signs of incomplete combustion!

Now on very windy days you may see some soot deposits down wind. Put a wind screen up, it can raise your gas/boil efficiency by a factor 10.

 

[day_trippr]

Right, the char is due to a rich mixture, and while there are some burners that totally suck wrt air/fuel balance (Dark Star 1.0 was a doozy) most can be properly balanced through adjusting the air intake properly.

As for contamination, I don't think pure carbon actually supports much wildlife

Cheers!