new to electric brewing/long hot break question

[dye4me]

Just switching over from propane to electric, Im noticing the foam of the hot break to be very aggressive as opposed to propane. If past propane brews if I knocked down the boil foam with 5-10 sprays from a bottle, and it may come back once or twice more, but then it collapse and goes into vigorus rolling boil. wit my first 2 electric brews, Ive tried lowering the duty cycle to 70%( I'm not sure if I could keep a boil below this point), Ive tried knocking the foam down with a few sprays from a bottle, but the foam came back almost instantly. After about 30mins of very aggressive foaming I hit it with the spray bottle for almost 2 mins straight, the foam collapesed and I though it was over but it came back hard one more time and again I hit it with 2 mins with a water spray bottle, it collapsed but this time stayed down, set my pid to 80% and finished the boil as normal. Anyone else experience this when switching to electric? Is the proper response to spray the hot break foam relentlessly at first sight until completed gone? Any input is appreciate.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I've been electric brewing for a while and never experienced this. I get a hot break turn the power down to around 75% like you and get a rolling boil with no foam the rest of the boil.

 

[dye4me]

at 75% are you getting a hard rolling boil or just a slow roll?

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

at 75% are you getting a hard rolling boil or just a slow roll?

Every system is different but I try to get a medium/ slow rolling boil. somewhere around 70- 75%. You need to play around with it till you figure out where you need to be.

 

[wisconsinitebrewer]

I get my hot break and then I bump it down to 65%. Even after doing this, I still get some foaming coming up. I have a switch built into my panel that can sends power to one element or another (or off). During this time when it is foaming up, i just move the switch to the off position. I keep doing this until it stops, about 1 minute.

 

[BrunDog]

1 word: fermcap. Should be the first ingredient any brewer buys IMO.

 

[LarMoeCur]

30 minute hot break seems like a really really long time. I start to see hot break around 210F. I then back down to 80%. The hot break grows for maybe a minute or two then drops away rapidly. I bump up to 82% and finish out my boil.

Was it a wheat beer? or a grain bill with a lot of protein in it? Ie oats or other flaked adjuncts?

Next batch I would only bump it down to 80% and see if you can boil through the break. I'm thinking you were holding the heat at the protein break tipping point which was just hot enough to break but not hot enough to do it quickly. A little more heat should speed up the process.