What was that "brain" in my cooled wort?

I am brewing my first ever 5 gal batch. I bought a recipe/ingredients from my local homebrew store with specialty grain, liquid malt and bittering and finishing hops. After steeping (with a grain bag) and boiling, I put my pot in an ice batch. I only peeked in enough to check temp. At end of cool down, I looked in and in the center of the pot just under the surface of the wort was what my wife swore looked liked a brain (and I agreed except that it was kinda whiteish/brownish instead of gray matter, but was about the size of a head). What was this and is there anthing I should be doing about it in the future?

It's coagulated protein and is perfectly normal.

Not knowing what it was, I stirred which seemed to break it up and then transferred the wort to my carboy. Should I have tried to fish it out? Will it affect my fermentation/ale?

Its exactly what was supposed to be there. You wouldn't have been able to fish it out, it was just the proteins settling in that pattern due to your cooling method. There's nothing wrong with it, there's nothing you should be doing about it. As a matter of fact, its one of the reasons you boiled, was to coagulate those exact proteins.

Next time, feed it to the zombies.



Seriously, that's what brewers call "cold break" material. It's a mix of coagulated protein, hops, and other gunge that comes out of the fluid after the boil during chilling. It's perfectly normal.

While you didn't harm anything by mixing it back into the bitter wort and transferring it to the fermenter, I advise you to avoid that in future batches. Not because it'll have a negative impact on flavor or aroma, but because it'll reduce the amount of drinkable beer at the end of the brewing process.

Think about it - here are your choices:

1. Leave it in the kettle. Transfer relatively clear bitter wort to the fermenter and top off to five gallons. At the end of fermentation, lose a couple of cups of beer in the inch or so of sediment at the bottom of the fermenter.

2. Transfer it to the fermenter, top off to five gallons. End up with three inches of sediment in the fermenter, reducing your total yield by a gallon. That's a 12-pack of bottles!

Sucker bet, huh?

You'll know better next time! And rest assured the batch you just brewed will end up as beer - excellent, fresh refreshing beer you made yourself. That never sucks!

Cheers,

Bob