Edcculus

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I brewed a wheat beer last night. Everything went according to plan, except that the trub did not seem to settle in the brew pot. I let it sit for 30 min and whirlpooled. We decided to just rack it into the carboy since there was no readily available way to strain.

Its bubbling away nicely now, thanks to my starter. Its in a 6.5 gallon carboy. I had 5 gallons of wort. The trub has basically settled and is resting around the 2.5 gallon mark.

My question is, now that this has happened, can I possibly strain out the trub later? I’m only fermenting for 10 days and don’t plan for a secondary. If I sanitized a paint strainer, could I strain through that into the bottling bucket? This seems like the easiest way without loosing a lot of my beer.

Any thoughts?

EvilTOJ

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I would leave it until fermentation's complete before worrying about the trub. When I first put the wort in the trub always goes about halfway up the carboy but it compacts down when fermentation is complete.

You really don't want to strain into the bottling bucket as there's a possibility of oxygenation issues. Sure I've never tasted a cardboard-y wheat beer, but why risk it? Put the strainer over the end of the siphon going into the fermenter instead.

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Edcculus

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Ah, thats a much better idea. The only reason I really brought it up is that I've never had that much trub. The most I've ever had was about 3-4 inches, and thats being generous.

farmbrewernw

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+1 on waiting until it is done fermenting, you might even think of crash cooling it in a couple of weeks to compact the trub more, I bet it will settle to a few inches by the end.

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Hoosierbrewer

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Watch the wheat fermentation. It can get exciting.

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WBC

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Never worry about trub. I have had great beers no matter how much trub was in the carboy. Let it primary for 14 days and it will fall to the bottom. Keep the temperature in the yeasts recommended range and the beer will be great.

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Couevas

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+1 on not straining after fermentation.

Straining is a great way toremove trub and oxygenate wort prior to pitching. But you do not want to add O2 after fermentation.

I brewed for many years without removing trub prior to pitching and had no ill effects other than a slight loss in volume of finished beer.

Just let it ferment out complete then bottle/keg. It's a wheat, crash cooling would not be true to form.

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PaulHilgeman

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I brewed my first 8 batches never thinking twice about the trub, I just let it settle out after fermentation is complete. I had a couple of the batches that were just great. I did my first recently where I let the wort sit for about an hour and a half to settle out the trub. While it was cool to siphon off crystal clear wort, in my tastings of hydrometer samples there is nothing too special about this beer so far, I will know more in a few weeks.

Bottom line, I think there are more important things to be concerned with. Just keep it in primary for a week after your airlock or blow-off is quiet and it will probably be compacted down to an inch or so.

-Paul

Edcculus

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Just got home from work and checked on it. The trub has settled to about half of what it was this morning. Thanks for all of the advice. Like I said earlier, i've never had that much in a batch before and was pretty worried about volume loss in the end.

Guess I should have RDWHAHB Hu? Oh well, having the responses kept my mind at ease today at work. Its bubbling away nicely in a room thats sitting around 70F. With a slightly damp t-shirt the fermenter is probably 68. Thank goodness for a small bathroom with an a/c vent.