To scrape or not to scrape?

[WichitaBrewer]

In the line of "Seinfeld" style brewing questions, I've got another one for you all... When brewing, we all obviously deal with what's called the hot break, where the kettle foams up, ect. As the hot break dies down, if there has been hops previously added to the kettle some of this will be lining the sides of the kettle. The question is, do you scrape this hop residue back into the kettle or just let it sit on the sides of the kettle and why?

WichitaBrewer

[Bugeater]

About 75% of the time I add my hops after the hot break, so I don't need to worry about it. The rest of the time I first wort hop. I still don't have a problem requiring scraping there either. As the foam starts to develop, I spritz it with a spray bottle of water. I never get more than 1/2" of foam and don't have boilover problems either. This way I never get enough hops stuck to the kettle above the level of the wort to have to worry about scraping them back. Besides, scraping would put back a bunch of crud I don't want in there anyway.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[WichitaBrewer]

Good point Bugeater. I've heard of the spraybottle technique before, but have never used it. I would have to guess that any nasties in the bottle would be killed off and not be an issue in the beer, particularly considering I assume that you're using very little water from the bottle. I'll give it a try next time, if I remember to that is!

WichitaBrewer

[Kevin]

I do a 30 minute preboil on almost all of my beers. I also skim the thickest portion of the first foam. It is mostly starches and cellulose, anyway.

I do keep whole hops in the wort by scraping, but not pellets because the oils and aa's are easily dissolved off of the particles after a few minutes. It takes longer with whole.

The spray bottle is a very good technique because it changes both the temperature and surface tension of the foam without any negative effects on the wort.

Kev.

[WichitaBrewer]

Kev, you bring up another interesting question, with regard to surface skimming of wort, which I know has been a bit of a topic of debate. I've heard of some brewers getting concerned that if they skim they will remove some important protein and other goodies from the brew. I've skimmed and not skimmed before and have seen no appreciatable reduction in beer quality, so probably, just like the spray bottle method of foam reduction, it's a great tool that I know I'm going to start utilizing more often in my brewing since it seems that they are working well for others.

WichitaBrewer

[WichitaBrewer]

One more thing, I like the preboil idea and will preboil when I'm dealing with brewing a maltier beer that I want to try to carmelize a bit, but with my lighter beers I like to keep the boil times shorter on my lighter, more delicate beers.

WichitaBrewer