Washing break/trub loss for more fermentables

Has anyone tried this? I just brewed a 3 gal ag Pale Ale batch and tried to calculate for break loss. I still ended up with only 2.5 gallons. I've always wanted to throw some boiled/sanitized water in with the protien and trub in an attempt to reclaim that last bit of sugars to get another half gallon or so.

I can't see this being a bad thing except that it might throw my numbers off but it sure would be nice to fill my 3 gal keg I'm taking on a trip with 3 full gallons.

My last batch was a delicious 6 gal Hefe with a protien rest and I don't remember there being as much trub after the boil.

Has anyone "washed their protein break and trub?

Cheers!
-John

The resultant wash would be such low gravity that it would not be worth it IMO...plan ahead and toss the trub, or ferment the total boil, and let the trub compact and settle in the fermenter.

put the last half galllon of water and trub thru a very fine sieve, it will take 15 minutes or so but chuck it in the boil as and when. You will still be left with a wet trub which you could boil under extremely low pressure and condense the vapour with a liquid nitrogen coil to recover the last few molecules of fermentable liwuid.

Thanks guys! Rob, your response is right on target. I really do try to adopt a policy of "no molecule left behind".

It is easer to compensate for this loss with larger batches, and smaller batches it seems the opposite seems to be true. Lesson for me learned: in every batch I will overcompensate by adding a full extra gallon to my calculations.