eBIAB Rye IPA scorched for the THIRD time!

[torque2]

Never had a scorched batch before with 50+ biab batches. Suddenly, well into the boil a burnt smell started. Tasted terrible. Had to pitch it. Element was a crusty and a pita to clean. Tried it again, following advice to do a 120 degree protein rest, mashed at 150, mashed out at 168 and stirred until reached boiling. I boiled it for 75 min. The burnt smell returned in the last 15 min. of the boil. Dumped it. Element was beyond cleaning so swapped in a new 5500 lwd. Thought that was the issue. Wrong! I cut out the flaked rye, gave it a protein rest and so on. I even cut back on the duty cycle to 85% for the boil. After an hour I started smelling it again. I think I caught it in time, because I don't detect it in the taste ... we'll see. I used 15% rye and am thinking the rye is the culprit. The new element looks worse than the one I pulled out! I'm soaking in PBW at 180 degrees in hope it will clean up.
I've brewed many wheat beers and did a similar rye recipe last summer with no problems. Maybe doing a recirculation during the boil? Running out of patience ... and ingredients.
Any advice?
Thanks,
Tim

 

[Bellybuster]

85%? I run mine with a 13 gallon batch at less than 60% for a good rolling boil.

 

[torque2]

I normally run 90-100% w/ no problems. I'm making 12 gallon batches. Perhaps ramping it down to 60-65% on the back half of the boil? I haven't notice the smell until after the first hour.

 

[Bassman2003]

I feel your pain. This is an issue with eBIAB. Definitely the non-barley ingredients are tougher. Anything change in your procedure? Different Ph? Different brand of malt? Different bag etc...

 

[torque2]

No changes I can think of, other than doing the rest on the 2nd attempt. Mash pH was dead on 5.2 (w/ phosphoric). I use a perforated pizza pan to separate my bag from the element (learned the hard way). Curious why this is an issue w/ ebiab. I've done plenty of hefeweisens w/ 10# of wheat plus flaked and had no problems. Each time I did notice a much cloudier/milky looking mash than ever before.Does rye present bigger problems than wheat?
Gonna have to pull the element. Major carbon. Looks like the inside of a 25 year old valve cover. Time for Castrol Super Clean or a good media blasting.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

do you clean out the pot before the boil, you don't burn boiling wort its either burning the grain in the mash or grain falls down in the bottom next to the element and burns

oh another way is that if you recirculate and you get a slightly stuck sparge and the water runs low under the mash, basically the element burns out and will ruin the beer and the element, Ive done this with a rims and clogged my mash the pump lost suction and wasn't watching it then burn city

 

[torque2]

I soak and scrub down the kettle and element w/hot PBW and recirculate 160 degree PBW through everything else for 20 min. The kettle starts very clean.
I find no evidence of any leaks in my bag and when I empty my kettle there are no residual grains at the bottom. The element is fairly evenly coated with a soft mushy outside layer (settled cold break) and a rock hard black carbon inside layer(burnt). I included a pic of the first element. The second one looks the same.

 

[torque2]

Just checked out the perforated pizza pan I use to keep the element from melting the bag and it has a thick layer of light colored goo on the underside.
Now I'm wondering if "stuff" is settling on the element during the mash that gets cooked when I mash out. But then why is it taking over an hour in the boil for the burnt smell to appear? Time to pull out "the scientific method".

Is anyone else struggling to hit temps with ebiab? The temp difference between the bottom 2-3 inches of the kettle and the bag of grains makes it hard to judge when to stop heating (good thing I have a commercial ice machine). It also makes me wonder if the trapping of heat is contributing to the problem I'm having. I wish there was an easier way than stirring to get heat away from the element and into the grains. So, that gets me wondering about recirculating from the bottom of the kettle to the top of the bag.
Thoughts?

 

[Arttu]

If you have pump, definitely recirculate. If you try to maintain temps with ebiab just by stirring the mash and firing the element, you are going to have problems. You have a lot of wort sitting under the false bottom and no amount of stirring is going to mix that properly with the rest of the mash. I wouldn't be surprised if the element was getting scorched already during the mash.

I recirculate and have very even temperatures. You also get amazingly clear wort (which will probably help you with scorching as well).

 

[-Snow-]

Are you leaving the false bottom in during the boil? You might need to take it out for better flow and heat distribution perhaps?

 

[Bassman2003]

My guess after burning wheat batches is that the "stuff" gets on the elements when you dough in and first fire up the elements. The grain particles are not full of water yet and more gets through the bag. Also the temperature difference between the element and the surrounding liquid is more extreme for lower rests.

What I am trying:

Do your first rest in your grain bucket. I did this and it helped with sediment. Easy to do. Heat your strike water as usual but instead of dumping your grain in, drain some water in to the grain bucket. Then heat the water for your next temp and dump the bucket in. By the time the grain gets in the main vessel it is all puffed up.

I am building a motorized stir arm to draw hot liquid up from the elements. I recirc as well but temps are better controlled with movement of liquid away from the elements which keeps them cooler.

This situation is tough but I want to find a solution as I am too far down the road of eBIAB to go back to 3 vessel.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

Try something else to hold your bag up. Maybe the holes aren't big enough and your cooking the bottom

 

[torque2]

The false bottom comes out when the bag comes out. I'm going to try it one more time w/ recirculation this coming weekend. I'm assuming it is a slow recirc. Details on that? When done mashing I will transfer to a second kettle for boil just to see the condition of the element. I'll report back what I find.
Thanks.

 

[torque2]

OK, I was a little timid about rebrewing the same recipe right off the bat, so I went with a Zombie Dust clone. I heated my water to 157 and then mashed at 149. I then recirculated into the grain bag while raising the temp to 168 for mash out. I can see how the problem may have started with the mash. The temp of the wort being drawn from the bottom was pushing 195 degrees, even after recirculating for a few minutes. Must be quite the heat trap without recirculating. After mash out I rerouted the hose to pump into a second ekettle so I could inspect the element while continuing to heat the wort. The element had a thin film layer on it that I could easily wipe off with a wash cloth, and the underside of the false bottom had a similar looking layer as before. The element looked like new again. I pumped the wort back into it and boiled for 90 min., whirlpooled and drained it. The element cleaned up easily with scotch brite and looks new again.
I'm now ready to rerun the RyePA recipe this weekend using the same procedure to see how things compare. I'll report back soon.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

yes I think you found the issue, just remember when recirculating you can run the element dry by accident by too high of a flow in a not enough coming out and that almost always happens with flaked grains so keep a watch on the wort level on top, adjust a valve to keep at least 1 inch above the grain but no more

 

[torque2]

Good point. I was thinking about that during the zd batch. I'll have to be more cautious this time around.

 

[RM-MN]

Just checked out the perforated pizza pan I use to keep the element from melting the bag and it has a thick layer of light colored goo on the underside.
Now I'm wondering if "stuff" is settling on the element during the mash that gets cooked when I mash out. But then why is it taking over an hour in the boil for the burnt smell to appear? Time to pull out "the scientific method".

Is anyone else struggling to hit temps with ebiab? The temp difference between the bottom 2-3 inches of the kettle and the bag of grains makes it hard to judge when to stop heating (good thing I have a commercial ice machine). It also makes me wonder if the trapping of heat is contributing to the problem I'm having. I wish there was an easier way than stirring to get heat away from the element and into the grains. So, that gets me wondering about recirculating from the bottom of the kettle to the top of the bag.
Thoughts?

You have a few issues to address. First off it the rye. It has more beta glucans than other grains and I think that is the start of the problem. You can try a beta glucan rest at 104F. but I've been told that there may not be much beta glucan enzyme left to do much there.

The second issue is the temperature of the heating element. You could use a controller to keep the element from getting as hot, something like a Pulse Width Modulator.

The third issue is mashout. You are doing a BIAB, not a conventional tun with a fly sparge so you don't need a mashout. Just pull the bag out and start heating the wort to boil. No more enzymatic activity then so you accomplish the same thing but without the bag of grains in there to limit the circulation. If the wort can circulate freely, you shouldn't get any excess heating at the element to burn.

The reason it takes an hour to smell the burn is that the beta glucans are a thin coating on the element and still transfer heat pretty well but over time they will begin to burn.

 

[tektonjp]

Just checked out the perforated pizza pan I use to keep the element from melting the bag and it has a thick layer of light colored goo on the underside.
Now I'm wondering if "stuff" is settling on the element during the mash that gets cooked when I mash out. But then why is it taking over an hour in the boil for the burnt smell to appear? Time to pull out "the scientific method".

Is anyone else struggling to hit temps with ebiab? The temp difference between the bottom 2-3 inches of the kettle and the bag of grains makes it hard to judge when to stop heating (good thing I have a commercial ice machine). It also makes me wonder if the trapping of heat is contributing to the problem I'm having. I wish there was an easier way than stirring to get heat away from the element and into the grains. So, that gets me wondering about recirculating from the bottom of the kettle to the top of the bag.
Thoughts?

It's the step mashing you're doing. I have come across this in my own EBIAB. And even with recirculation, you can run the risk of getting some sunk built up on the element preboil, which there can get burned. What I am in the process of building is a switching set up which puts the 240 element at 110 during the mashing phase so I won't be amping it up too much. Since it appears your can dial back your element during boiling, I suggest you try doing that during your mash ramp ups; keep your element under 50% and see what happens.

 

[AnthonyUK]

I had a similar issue with my concealed element urn which resulted in the element blowing.
The element density is just too high so after mashing and I have raised the bag, I vorlauf a few jugs full back through the draining bag to remove as much particulate as I can. You can soon see the wort start to clear which is when I turn the element back on.
My element has been almost clear since doing this.

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for sharing. Looks like a solution is closer than before. I have two elements in my kettle so I going to use one for mashing and the other for boiling. Hopefully this will limit the use of a caked element from the mash.

Abour mashouts - beyond the enzyme activity, I think they are still worth doing for the wort viscosity. When the mash goes to 170f it gets less viscous and the wort runs better.

 

[torque2]

Here's an update for anyone interested. I went back to the original rye IPA recipe that resulted in my first scorched batch (including 1 lb of flaked rye-goin' full parameters!)
I decided to do a separate protein rest with the rye in a smaller kettle at 122F for 20 min. I then added this to the rest of the grains at dough-in. Mashed at 148F for 45 min. I began recirculating the last 5 minutes and continued while heating to 168F. I pulled the bag while draining into a separate kettle. Heating element looked great! Still had muck on bottom of false bottom, but element cleaned up easily w/ paper towel. Pumped wort back in and boiled at 90% for 90 min. Element was an easy wipe down w/ scotch brite and looked good as new. I ran it at a pretty good rate w/ the element at 100% on my way to mash-out. I understand the argument that a mash-out isn't necessary, but if I can do it without ruining my element while getting clearer wort and a little more efficiency, I'm doing it. BTW, I don't squeeze the bag.
Thanks for all the support! Not easy forging on with as much failure as I was having. I ended up having to pitch the previous batch post-fermentation. It had no off-smell (actually no smell at all), but the burnt taste was through the roof.
I hope this experience helps others avoid the same issue.
Cheers,
Tim

 

[Bassman2003]

Thanks for the update. So what do you think solved the problem in the end?

I am working out some equipment issues but hope to have some experiment data up soon with a new SS screen.

 

[torque2]

I'm feeling pretty confident that the the beta glucan from the rye created the gooey mess on the false bottom and the element. I'm also confident that the recirculation kept the element surface temp down which kept the goo from baking onto it. I also think moving the wort out of the bottom and back into the bag pulled the beta glucan away from the element and helped filter it out of the wort. However, I didn't see much improvement in clarity by putting it back in the bag.
Looking back to my brewing before the rye disaster I do recall that the element was always a lot of work to clean. I'm curious how long it will maintain the "new" look with this approach. I'm also curious how my previous non-rye recipes may have been affected by those conditions. I'm about to keg my Zombie Dust clone, and right now it is awesome! I've got a few bottles of ZD for comparison so I'll report back shortly.