Foam Control

[Martin Bridges]

I never used to have problems with boilovers when making starters but recently it seems to have been becoming an issue. The US homebrewers talk about using FermCap for foam control - does anyone know of a stockist in NZ or will I have to bring it in from Oz?

Cheers,

Martin

[Brent Marquis]

I'm assuming you are boiling in a flask?
Do you have your stir-bar in while boiling? That seems to help for me - works like a boiling stone and sanitises the stir-bar all at the same time.  Haven't had a boilover *touch wood* came pretty close before I started having my stirbar in while boiling.

[Martin Bridges]

Yes I am and yes I do!

Last night I boiled over when I took my eye off a 1 litre starter boiling in my 3 litre flask.

[Brent Marquis]

that's crazy.  Perhaps your boil is overly vigorous?
I have a ceramic hob, use a little metal stand thing to give about a cm of clearance.
Crack to high, as soon as I hit boil, drop down to low to maintain slight rolling boil.
1L in a 2L flask, no problemo

[Tilt]

As with Brent - my starter boilovers decreased significanlty after I started putting my stir bar in from the beginning of the boil.  On the rare occasion foam approaches the top I give it a quick squirt with starsan.

Having said that (and not meaning ths to be a thread derail - the topics are related)  I get problems with foam spillover on wort transfer/aeration from the kettle to the fermentor via a 50cm drop. Also interested to know if there's a Fermcap supplier in NZ to deal with this issue.

[Brent Marquis]

Is the foam from aeration, or sanitiser foam?
Perhaps check your sanitiser dilution rate, especially if it's starsan.

50cm drop gives me very little foam.

[Tilt]

The foam is all from the wort - there's very little Starsan left in my fermentor when I drop the wort in. 

Maybe its something to do with my mash temp and proteins rather than the physical wort dropping.  I'll look into other reasons rather than fighting the symptoms - particulalry if it buggars up other aspcts of the beer.

[Mike Neilson]

FermCap's a mofo, It can mess with your IBU's, Just pay more attention and more dedication to I reacon. 

[Richard Jack]

there are anti foaming agents that are used for distilling available from most brew stores. Think they're branded essencia. Might be worth doing some ingredient research and seeing if they are similar? I never used them myself, so I don't know what they're made of.

[Tim Stewart]

I seem to have alot of foam at the start of the boil too ,I think its more to do with the high protein in the wort.....maybe

Spraying some cool water from a spray bottle on the on the foam and stiring does the trick every time

 

[Richard Oliver]

Why not boil the wort in another pot and add it to the sterilised flask? You could try sterilising the flask by filling it with boiling water. The tapered sides will make boiling hard in an erlenmeyer flask.