diff --git a/src/grid/spectral_utilities.f90 b/src/grid/spectral_utilities.f90
index 2a675c9b6..525f68d7e 100644
--- a/src/grid/spectral_utilities.f90
+++ b/src/grid/spectral_utilities.f90
@@ -256,7 +256,7 @@ subroutine spectral_utilities_init
 !--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ! general initialization of FFTW (see manual on fftw.org for more details)
   if (pReal /= C_DOUBLE .or. kind(1) /= C_INT) error stop 'C and Fortran datatypes do not match'
-  call fftw_set_timelimit(num_grid%get_asFloat('fftw_timelimit',defaultVal=-1.0_pReal))
+  call fftw_set_timelimit(num_grid%get_asFloat('fftw_timelimit',defaultVal=300.0_pReal))
 
   print'(/,1x,a)', 'FFTW initialized'; flush(IO_STDOUT)