leotrace

Recipes 

Hey guys,

A friend of mine and I have gotten addicted to brewing recently, but we keep having a problem that we can't seem to work around: fully filtering the cold break. We've tried using a simple screen strainer and a funnel strainer but have had mixed results. The screen strainer was quick, but definitely didn't remove all of the cold break. The funnel was more efficient at removing it all, but took absolutely forever.

What do you all use? Is there a better way?

neovox

Recipes 

You don't have to filter out the cold break. Many people pour everything right into the fermenter once cooled. The break material will drop out to the bottom by the end of the fermentation. That said, if you want to leave it behind you can use some Irish Moss at the end of the boil to clump it up and siphon from your kettle to the primary. Using this method you can leave behind the good majority of it.

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BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

Don't worry about a little break material in the fermenter unless you are making a lager or something that absolutely calls for less break. For years I used a collander ( I make mostly ales) like you would use when making tomatoe juice and it has pretty big holes. It more or less just filtered out the hops (I use home grown whole leaf exclusively) and then when enough hops had built up it would start filtering out more break. If you don't leave the beer on the trub too long (more than 3 weeks) it should not cause any issues. If you are using a secondary fermenter....all the more reason not to worry. If you absolutely feel like you have to.....you can always get a big nylon paint strainer bag from hardware store or a nylon hop bag from local HBS and use that.

Hope this helps.....Cheers

BendBrewer

Recipes 

False bottom and ball valve on your kettle. Leave 1 - 2 quarts behind. Problem, not that there is one, solved.

BBL_Brewer

Recipes 

Neovox brings up a good point I hadn't thought of......you can do a whirlpool.....after cooling the wort...get the wort stirring good and then leave it sit for a few minutes. Then siphon off from the sides of the pot and most of the hops/break material will remain in the center of the pot in a cone shape and get left behind when siphoning.

leotrace

Recipes 

That's good to know. We used Irish Moss in the last batch and that seemed to do a better job at clearing up the beer.

Do you know of any other techniques to help with beer clarity?

itsme6582

Recipes 

Time and cold crashing.

remilard

Recipes 

It takes hours at freezing temperatures to get all of the cold break to form, let alone remove it. Look into settling tanks or floating to see commercial literature on the subject.

The small part of the cold break that chilling to ale pitching temp will form in the kettle is not worth trying to separate. Either get it all like a German lager brewery or don't worry about it (I say don't worry about it).

Hot break, different story.

leotrace

Recipes 

What would you recommend for filtering the hot break?

remilard

Recipes 

Generally the same thing you do to separate hops should separate hot break. For whole hops this is typically a hopback or false bottom, the hops create a filter bed. For pellet hops this is typically a whirlpool.