Plate chiller and cold break

I purchased and used for the first time last weekend a 30 plate chiller on a Rye IPA that I brewed on Sunday. It is great and reduces temp faster than I could imagine. But, my beer has never been more cloudy in the primary. I am using a CA Ale Yeast WP5001 which I have used before. The receipt has a small amount of wheat which I have not used before but less than 1 lb.
I think it's due to the cold break staying with the wort in the primary. I guess I can cold crash this but really don't want to do this every time I brew to clear my beer. Any ideas or suggestions?

I would suggest recirculating the outflow from your chiller back through a whirlpool inlet in the BK. It's overkill for cooling, but it helps form a trub cone. I also have a <GHT:1/2" PT:1/2" Ball valve:1/2" MPT:GHT> assembly on my garden hose input to adjust the flow of cooling water going into the chiller... this allows me to dial back the cooling and ensures that after recirculating my wort isn't 50 degrees going into the conical.

I use the Shirron plate chiller running on cold well water source (maybe around 42deg). The problem I discovered with plate chillers is that they cool so quickly that the first brew I just dumped straight to my conical. After it was filled I realized I didnt separate any of the cold break protein mess. Worked out ok cause I just bottom dumped my conical after 24 hours... but now I make sure to recirc my bitter wort back into my sanke BK through a whirlpool feed. The wort is plenty cool, but it helps to form a trub cone. Nice thing with them is.... you get an amazing cold break with the wort going from 210 -> 80deg in 1 second

Also about the rye and wheat... if you havent brewed with high % in your grain bill... then yes it is normal to see more haze than a strict barley grain bill. 50%+ wheat bills are much more messy in many ways.

I'm looking at adding a plate chiller to the eBIAB w/recirc build I'm working on now. this is my first AG rig so I'm still learning lots from y'all. I'm figureing on using a hop spider, and considering recirc through the hop spider for last hop additions. would a hop spider filter out the cold break?

mavrick1903 said:

I'm looking at adding a plate chiller to the eBIAB w/recirc build I'm working on now. this is my first AG rig so I'm still learning lots from y'all. I'm figureing on using a hop spider, and considering recirc through the hop spider for last hop additions. would a hop spider filter out the cold break?

Click to expand...

Typical muslin/mesh bags will filter out most of the hop sediment and some of the protein coagulation, but not all of it. It's still best to do a whirlpool and siphon/pump from the side edge of the kettle to avoid the cone of mess in the middle. If some of that crap gets in your fermenter... no biggie it won't affect flavor much and most of the sediment will settle to the bottom with the yeast cake anyway.

If you're final product after fermentation (>2 weeks) is still off tasting/bitter/cloudy/whatever bothers you, I would recommend dropping it out with gelatin. There's a couple nice threads about it on the forums, basically:
- buy the cheap knox plain unflavored gelatin boxes
- 1 tbsp powder per 1 cup water
- heat to 170F
- let sit 10 mins
- pour into fermenter lightly mix (don't disturb sediment cake if possible)
- within 48 hours or so beer should be very clear

Hope this helps... if you have questions let me know.

Thanks O'Haggerty. I'm doing a bottom/center dump, so pulling off the side would be hard. the information provided is very useful.