One of the problems that may home brewers (especially beginners) are struggling with is the separation of trub/hops and wort. My first approach to this was using a large funnel with a mesh screen. This screen clogged up immediately, causing a lot of stress when I was concerned about getting the wort as fast as possible out of the way of germs and into the primary. I ended up dumping most of the trub into the primary as well.

Pretty much the same happened with the 2nd batch when I thought A colander would do a better job. It wasn't until my 3rd batch that I gave the idea of whirpooling a try. But it didn't work as well as I thought it would. With subsequent batches I improved the technique and are now able to completely relax when it comes to transferring the wort into the primary and leaving most of the trub behind.

Whirpooling employs 2 methods of seperating the trub from the wort. The first one is sedimentation, which means the trub will sink to the bottom when left alone. The second one is centrifugal force which forces the trub into the center of the pot. If both methods are used, the trub will be collected in a nice trub-cone in the center of the pot. This is the main trub seperation technique that is used in commercial breweries before the wort is chilled.

Just sedimentation would work to. But since the trub would be evenly spread on the bottom of the pot, you cannot siphon as low as you can if the trub is collected in a cone.

Here is what I do:

I chill the wort with an immersion chiller. Note that I left the spoon in the pot during the boil and when the wort is being chilled.


Then I move the pot to an elevated position. After the whirlpool has been started you shoud not move or disturb it. The whirlpool is started with the spoon. After that, the spoon is taken out.


Now rest the wort for at least 20-30 min. You should keep it covered during this time. During this time sanitize my fermentation gear.


Then you can set up your siphoning gear. If you keep the wort covered, there is no worry about infection. The set-up shown here is more complicated than necessary as I added a chiller to get the pitching temp down to 60F. I oxygenate later with O2 and an SS stone, which means I don't worry about sufficient aeration at this point. When you put in the racking cane, slide it only half way down into the wort. You don't want to disturb the trub cone by accident.

.. to be contiued (I can only use 4 images per post)