Cold Break / Yeast Washing

I just brewed my first electric batch - my fifth total; I got hooked quickly - and I am wondering if I should change part of my process. I have a one kettle system with a plate chiller from duda-diesel. With a basin of ice water this is getting the wort down to under 80* in less than 15 minutes and going straight into a carboy. One of the reasons I went this route is I like that the wort chills straight into the carboy without really any added work of moving it around. I've moved a full volume boil off a propane burner to elevation high enough to run the chiller and burned myself pretty good, so I like how this has worked so far. With the chugger pump that's in the mail, it'll work excellent I think.

I'm getting a good cold break, which goes straight into the carboy. I've read through several of the threads about cold break; the consensus seems to be that it doesn't make much of a difference - if at all - on clarity or taste whether you keep it out of the fermentation vessel or not. This batch is a Rogue Dead Guy clone and I'm using Pacman yeast. As this stuff is expensive and has to be shipped, I'm hoping to wash it and store it after I transfer to secondary. My question is whether the cold break will adversely effect washing and storing the yeast. Does it matter? The kettle has a bazooka hop strainer installed, which I believe does a pretty good job of catching the hops, so that shouldn't really be getting in the trub cake too much.

Should I transfer to another carboy to eliminate the cold break?

Thanks!

- First post, but big reader -

I should note, the carboy picture is only about 10 minutes after cooling into the carboy, so its not fully settled yet.

BadgerBrew3r said:

Should I transfer to another carboy to eliminate the cold break?

Click to expand...

No, I wouldn't, just let it ferment and wash from the primary as usual. The yeast washing process will get rid of the cold break material.

I tend wash to get rid of hop material but there is some evidence that you don't need to wash at all if you're not looking for long-term storage. Google for woodlandbrew's blog posts titled "yeast washing exposed" and "yeast washing revisited".

Thanks guys! I'll probably pitch today and not worry about the cold break in the future.