Three issues I recently experienced which are making me wonder if I received a bad pound of Briess pils DME:
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While making a 1 liter starter in my 2 liter flask (actual flask volume more like 3 liters) on the stovetop I could not control the break. Usually it takes me 2 or 3 minutes where I have to watch closely, occasionally removing it from the heat, but this time I easily spent 20 minutes and could not control the detergent like bubbles I was getting. Finally I thought maybe I didn’t rinse my flask well enough and dumped it, rinsed really well, and started over - same problem.
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I came up a little short on my gravity for the brew I prepared the starter for and added 8 ounces of the same DME in the last 5 minutes of the boil to bump it up a few points. Had a huge hot break and almost boiled over, just barely got it under control in 5 minutes.
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Now it’s fermenting in a 6.5 gallon carboy with 5.25 gallons volume at 65 degrees with Wyeast 1056 and I had a blow off. The krausen is literally 8" above the surface of the wort and also climbed 12" up the blow off tube. I typically ferment this at 62 degrees and usually get a 2" to 3" krausen.
Now I’m wondering if something was up with the DME or if these where all strange coincidences and I’m paranoid?
