National Homebrew Club Ireland

I've done about 15 brews on my Peco Boiler. Tonight, for the first time, one of the muslins which held my hops burnt on the element. I was cleaning out my boiler after I had transferred the wort to my fermenter. I tried to take out one of the muslin bags and found it had burnt onto element. Really annoyed at this, as it's never happened before. I'm presuming my brew is screwed. I'm going to get a false bottom for the boiler. Anyone else have this happen to them? What caused the hops to fall onto element this time? :(

The burning will normally only happen in solution if the hops properly wrap around the element. Otherwise the heat doesn't get high enough to burn the bags. There needs to be prolonged contact, the mass of heavy hops/grain sits in contact for a long period. If it's proper muslin and you can't taste it in the brew then you should be OK. Plastic is a different story and I'd throw it away whether I could taste it or not.

Quote from: Eoin on October 06, 2015, 08:58:53 AM
The burning will normally only happen in solution if the hops properly wrap around the element. Otherwise the heat doesn't get high enough to burn the bags. There needs to be prolonged contact, the mass of heavy hops/grain sits in contact for a long period. If it's proper muslin and you can't taste it in the brew then you should be OK. Plastic is a different story and I'd throw it away whether I could taste it or not.

Thanks Eoin. I'm thinking it happened when I dropped in the wort chiller 15 minutes before end of boil. I tasted the wort after the boil, and didnt get any bad flavours. It's proper muslin not plastic. There were no floaty black bits or anything, just that the muslin was burnt stuck to the element when I went to clean out the boiler.

Muslin is cotton.... I'd say it's safe myself.

I had a hop bag stick to the element before and the brew was ruined. It fermenter ok but when I kegged it there was a horrible burnt taste, like I was drinking a camp fire.

Quote from: jawalemon on October 06, 2015, 01:56:11 PM
I had a hop bag stick to the element before and the brew was ruined. It fermenter ok but when I kegged it there was a horrible burnt taste, like I was drinking a camp fire.

Thanks for response. Was it a muslin bag, or plastic hop bag? I'll taste it after fermentation before I dryhop it. This recipe has a lot of 130g of dryhop. Dont fancy throwing that away.

It's down to the taste, if the unfermented wort doesn't taste burnt you should be fine.

Quote from: ronniedeb on October 06, 2015, 09:57:23 PM

Quote from: jawalemon on October 06, 2015, 01:56:11 PM
I had a hop bag stick to the element before and the brew was ruined. It fermenter ok but when I kegged it there was a horrible burnt taste, like I was drinking a camp fire.

Thanks for response. Was it a muslin bag, or plastic hop bag? I'll taste it after fermentation before I dryhop it. This recipe has a lot of 130g of dryhop. Dont fancy throwing that away.

It was a muslin bag

I had this happen to me once and the brew was fine. I would go by taste on this one!

This happened me once before and it didn't impact the taste of the beer. I use a Tesco pizza plate in the Peco boiler now. Perfect fit.

Quote from: Richie71 on October 07, 2015, 09:40:18 AM
This happened me once before and it didn't impact the taste of the beer. I use a Tesco pizza plate in the Peco boiler now. Perfect fit.

Thanks! Any chance of a link to that pizza plate?

Photos and info on the Tesco pizza plate under : "Cover for element of Peco boiler"  in Equipment section of this forum.  Don't forget to drill more holes in it!

http://m.tesco.ie/mt/www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=260290096

Yeah, that's the same one I'm using. Knew I saw it here somewhere before, just couldn't remember where. I've only used it twice so far and no issues yet. Have the extra drilled holes made a difference?

Yes - bigtime!  The first time I used the plate, I had difficulty maintaining temperature of the mash because the heated liquid spread so slowly upwards. Doubling the number of holes solved that problem.

Cool - good to know. And the plate is safe for your boiler yeah, even when drilled? Is it teflon coated stainless or something similar?

Anyone have experience of the Geterbrewed Peco Boiler False Bottom? For a few euro more than the Tesco plate, I'd be tempted to just go for this, unless there is something wrong with it.
http://www.geterbrewed.com/stainless-steel-false-bottom-for-peco-boiler/

The Tesco thing is teflon coated but what's underneath is not stainless, I think. If I had known about the geterbrewed false bottom, I would have bought that!

These might be useful also, they come with combination microwave ovens, you might pick one up at a recycle centre of power city recycling bins

https://www.partmaster.co.uk/microwave/microwave-grill-racks/catalogue.pl?path=67430,579130:579142