I only have a few AG brews under my belt, mostly BIAB but I have had trouble with everything in the boil going into the fermenter. I use pellet hops in bags and have tried to whirlpool but must be doing something wrong. How important is trub removal and can anyone suggest what I am not doing right?
Thanks
Trub in the fermentor won’t really matter except that it takes up some space. However, my experience is that whirlpooling works for hops but not so much for trub. After you whirlpool, let it settle for at least 30min, an hour is better. Then you can usually run off and leave most of it behind. I also use Supermoss, that increases the amount but helps the trub settle a little more densely. You want your pickup tube up above the level of trub too. Or if racking, just keep the cane tip above the trub.
I am so cheap I’ll pour the trub in a pitcher and let it settle in the fridge overnight to get some wort for starters.
Another option is to run the wort through a strainer/colander as you are pouring it into the fermenter. As long as the wort is cool (< 80F) and ready for the yeast, oxidation is not a problem. In fact, the pouring and straining will aerate the wort a bit (not enough to skip more traditional aeration steps).
All you need is a sanitized strainer and maybe a sanitized spoon to scoop out excess debris. I don’t believe this will replace finings or irish moss, but it does help with rogue grain, hot break and hop particles.
Trub removal is not important. Relax. Don’t worry.
trub isnt a huge issue, also dont worry about grabbing every last drop from your kettle.
You have to let everything settle for a good amount of time and then have a decent pickup tube or rack from edges.
THere have been some podcasts on trub vs no trub and I think there were some slight flavor differences if I remember right but not bad differences and they were very slight.
I just bottled a BIAB that I had massive amounts of trub in. I don’t have a good way to do a cold crash so I still had lots of “floaties” in the beer at bottling time. I batch-primed using a siphon and tried to miss as much of the sediment as I could. But I still had so much sediment in the primed beer that it actually plugged my bottling wand. I also lost about a half gallon of golden goodness in trying to avoid the worst of the sediment. There will be no more “commando” hopping in my brewery. And next time I’m going to strain the wort twice into the fermenter.
Chuck, that doesn’t sound fun, but I doubt the loose hops are to blame. How long did you leave the beer in the fermentor before you bottled? Also, I almost never use secondaries anymore, but a situation like you describe that didn’t clear itself after an extra couple of weeks would be a good time to consider racking the beer to a secondary.
I think “Commando Hopping” is my new favorite term.
I don’t understand why racking to a second vessel would promote additional clearing. Time is time. If it’s in one or two vessels doesn’t matter.
I don’t understand why racking to a second vessel would promote additional clearing. Time is time. If it’s in one or two vessels doesn’t matter.[/quote]
I know, but I’ve noticed that racking seems to cause more rapid settling. Sometimes you get a haze formed in a primary that just won’t drop all the way out, and racking will help. Might be that you stir things up more and eliminate any slight gradients that form when a carboy sits still for a long time.
Actually, I was just looking at Chuck’s comment that there was so much sediment is clogged the wand. If there is so much that it gets drawn up into the racking cane, or if there are floaters that randomly get drawn in, I find that you either have to hold the wand further up off the bottom while syphoning (which can sometimes be tricky if you are trying to save as much beer as possible), or just accept that some trub will transfer over and you’ll just need to let it settle and then rack again.
You gotta wait for the trub to settle after fermentation, no doubt about that. Thats one up side to avoiding it in the wort to begin with. The other being the ability to harvest more or less clean yeast.
I don’t understand why racking to a second vessel would promote additional clearing. Time is time. If it’s in one or two vessels doesn’t matter.[/quote]
I know, but I’ve noticed that racking seems to cause more rapid settling. Sometimes you get a haze formed in a primary that just won’t drop all the way out, and racking will help. Might be that you stir things up more and eliminate any slight gradients that form when a carboy sits still for a long time.[/quote]
Seems like a plausible theory.
Really no issue unless you are going to save the yeast for another batch. I myself found it very hard to wash yeast unless there was little to no trub in the fermentor.
You can do 1 or two things if you are really worried about it. Take an auto siphon and put a chunk of paint strainer bag on the end with a rubber band and siphon to the carboy.
OR
You can pour it into a carboy, let it sit over night and then either siphon to another carboy or just slowly pour into another carboy. THis will remove almost 90+ percent of the trub.
Cheers !
[quote="Nighthawk]
Seems like a plausible theory.
[/quote]
Ha! Not really. Maybe its just that some particles don’t manage to find enough other particles to stick to, and they remain suspended. You could swirl things up and help them move around and find stuff to stick to, but then you’re stirring up the stuff that did drop. By racking you get away from the stuff that dropped and stir things up enough that more stuff clumps and drops.
Or maybe not.
In wine, suspended particulates tend to be positively or negatively charged. I suspect the same is true with beer. Does anyone know how break material is charged? If it is strongly charged one way or the other, I suppose it could keep lighter, similarly charged particles in suspension until the material at the bottom is removed…
Sounds good, though I suspect it is wrong.
