Trub separation

Stupid question here. Tried doing a fast search but didn't really come up with what I was looking for.

Really what this amounts to is whirlpool or no whirlpool.
Right now I don't whirlpool. I have a boilermaker with a hop blocker, though I also use hop sacks. I'm mostly wanting to remove the hot break, and possibly cold break. The hop blocker prevents formation of an adequate whirlpool. I'm not ready to jump to drilling holes for a recirculation type whirlpool, but will say that doing a manual stir just doesn't work.
One option that occurred to me is to let the wort settle in the conical before pitching (during clean up for instance) and then open the dump valve to eliminate the trub before pitching. Anyone else do this? Any pros or cons? One benefit I can see is that its free. One con is that I often reserve my conical for lagers and depending on my brewing schedule, it might not be available when I would need it.

Thanks

TD

There's no real reason to separate the trub from the fermenting beer, and contact with some trub may be beneficial to yeast health. If it bothers you from an aesthetic perspective, you can dump the trub out of the conical, but it's not necessary.

whats the size of yo ur brew system for your nano brewery?

I brew 11 gallons at a time to collect 10 gallons of finished beer most times

You could definitely collect all the wort from your brew kettle into the conical, wait 30 minutes or so and open the dump valve, the pitch. I've heard of some breweries doing this. However, you introduce a couple more chances for infections/contaminations to occur.

I suppose the real question is, are you trying to get the most beer, or the clearest beer? If you have time (which is always the professional brewer's enemy), you should be able to blow off yeast and cold crash the beer before moving it, giving you a relatively clean transfer. We typically blow off yeast a couple times a day, over the course of a couple days if we can, before transferring.

Good luck, and of course, cheers!

inthesound said:

You could definitely collect all the wort from your brew kettle into the conical, wait 30 minutes or so and open the dump valve, the pitch. I've heard of some breweries doing this. However, you introduce a couple more chances for infections/contaminations to occur.

I suppose the real question is, are you trying to get the most beer, or the clearest beer? If you have time (which is always the professional brewer's enemy), you should be able to blow off yeast and cold crash the beer before moving it, giving you a relatively clean transfer. We typically blow off yeast a couple times a day, over the course of a couple days if we can, before transferring.

Good luck, and of course, cheers!

Click to expand...

More chance of infection because of?? Delay in pitching?

The real question is not the most beer, but a better tasting beer. I currently don't really eliminate the hot break, or cold break. It clogs up my plate chiller along with hop particles and I can't really achieve a whirlpool without drilling my equipment for a recirculating setup made just for doing a whirlpool. Seems much frustration could be avoided by just dumping trub from conical after letting rest for a while during clean most likely. Time isn't really a factor either.

What specifically are you talking about blow off and cold crash before moving it? Are you talking after primary fermentation? I'm pretty new at using the conical, and seems I may be denying myself some of the benefits.

Thanks!

TD

daksin said:

There's no real reason to separate the trub from the fermenting beer, and contact with some trub may be beneficial to yeast health. If it bothers you from an aesthetic perspective, you can dump the trub out of the conical, but it's not necessary.

Click to expand...

I have read the hot break is undesirable in fermenter, while some cold break on the contrary may be beneficial.

TD

You can definitely just dump trub off the bottom valve if you have a conical. I did this for years. The amount of kettle finings that you use will determine how fluffy your trub ends up and therefore how much beer you waste by doing this. (You'll want to use the minimum quantity possible.)

-Professional breweries use a plastic "imhoff cone" to determine the right quantity of finings to use for each beer.



Despite most home brewers wishes and constant mantra-like repeating to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of the professional literature says that trub (hot AND cold break) is generally detrimental to beer flavor although it can create nucleation sites which decreases CO2 quantities which can increase yeast health/ fermentation performance. (Or you can just shake your fermenter every 12 hours and do the same thing... Or perform "beech wood chip aging" like a certain mega brewery to increase nucleation sites.)


Two pretty old articles that make the case (sources quoted): http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue1.4/barchet.html Hot Trub
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/barchet.html Cold Trub

ASBC article that says the same thing (requires a login for more than the abstract): http://www.asbcnet.org/journal/abstracts/backissues/40-12.htm
Part of another ASBC article that says the same thing:
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/t/l/a/tla81b00/Stla81b00.pdf


That small quantity of trub that is beneficial is a very small quantity, especially for home brewers.


Adam

Thanks Adam!

I also read that kettle pH can affect the character of hot break. At any rate, I currently only have ONE conical, which I tend to reserve for doing lagers, but as you know, I've been looking into alternative fermentation vessels and temp control. Built a walk in basement addition, and did a bunch of ale brews in the spring and the temp was ideal, but in the summer, is just too hot to get ideal ale fermentation temps without turning on the costly A/C which I don't think can really get the room below 70 throughout, maybe cool spots at 68, probably because there is no air-return. So this is not going to work for me and I need for now, an ale fermentation space, and since I have only the one conical (wandering off topic) the thought occured to me to get some plastic conical temp controlled fermentors.

Will read those articles.

Thanks!

TD