Why design to avoid trub pickup from boiler?

Hi Folks,
I am getting closer to finishing my setup.
The pickup tube in my kettle leaves behind about a litre / quart as it breaks suction.
This is because it is offset to avoid picking up whirlpooled trub from the boil.
If I just pumped from the centre, I'd probably recover most of this wasted liquor.
I have a conical fermenter.
I use a hop sock in the boil.
So my first question is:
Why worry about picking up the trub?
Why not just pump it all to the fermenter, let it settle and rack before pitching?
My second question is:
How long should you expect it to take to settle well enough to rack?
Cheers.

so you're asking why you shouldn't suck it up when rackign once, only to have to rack again a few hours later to get rid of it before pitching??

well, that's a fair amount of extra work, versus brewing an extra half gallon of wort that you plan to lose.

teh trub will affect the flavor of the beer, since it contains all those hops. Notice I didn't state it always negatively affects the flavor of the beer, just that it has an effect...it may or may not be desirable but you won't know until after its way too late to do anything about it.

your other option is to siphon it up and put something like a paint strainer/filter at the end of your racking cane to capture the break/trub so it doesn't go into your fermenter in the first place.

You whirlpool to avoid picking up the trub, so why move the pickup into the trub? Brewing is a lossy business: hops soak up wort, samples get taken, trub happens. Going for that last liter just moves the loss to the next stage.

My pickup goes right to the bottom in the center of my kettle. I filter out the hops with a hop bag, and since I use a CFC all of the cold break and most of the hot break makes it into the fermenter. No negative results so far. In fact, I've heard that the cold break is good for your little yeasty friends.

Lil' Sparky said:

My pickup goes right to the bottom in the center of my kettle. I filter out the hops with a hop bag, and since I use a CFC all of the cold break and most of the hot break makes it into the fermenter. No negative results so far. In fact, I've heard that the cold break is good for your little yeasty friends.

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Same here.

Thanks for that, but perhaps I should have been a little clearer in part.
Having a conical means I can take it all to the fermenter, through the CFC, let it settle there, and then dump the trub out of the bottom. Only then pitch the yeast.
This way I figure I can save the liquor normally left behind in the kettle.
Problem is, I don't know how long an UNwhirlpooled trub would take to sink to the bottom of the conical.
I'm concerned if it is a long time before pitching, it might:
a/ affect flavour.
b/ give some nasties time to compete with the pitched yeast.

So how long would it take for trub to sink to a relatively compact state without whirlpooling?

Cheers,
Yorg.

I guess it all depends on the temp. but I have taken samples and set them in the keggorator for 3-4 hours and there was still a bit of suspended trub if its a big deal to you you might invest in a HOP BACK I use one from time to time and it works killer for removing trub.
JJ

A large quantity of trub, particularly hot trub is generally considered undesirable in the finished wort.

http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue1.4/barchet.html said:

Although most amino acids are assimilated by the yeast, remaining proteins should be removed because they later react with polyphenols, resulting in colloidal instability (haze). The elimination of all non-amino acid proteins is not warranted or even desirable, however, because they are essential for giving the beer full body and head retention.

Hot trub precipitates are formed during the boiling of the wort. In a study in a German brewery (2), hot trub particles varied in size from 30 to 80 microns. Its composition is shown in Table I. Effective removal of hot trub before fermentation is critical because the trub can smear the yeast's cell walls, impeding the transport of substances in and out of the cell, which can lead to head retention problems, poor flavor stability, and harsh bitterness in the palate of the beer.

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If you are asking is there any need to remove it if you have a conical, i'd say no, not really as you could drop a large amount of the trub before pitching and the rest once fermentation begins. You'll have a nice clean yeast slurry to harvest too

You do generally want to keep a large proportion of the hops out though as they can produce undesirable flavours and inhibit fermentation and a lot of the methods used to remove the hops such as whirlpools and hop filters tend to remove a lot of the trub anyway.

On the whole I would prefer to hold back as much trub as possible as it avoids the need to wait for it to settle out in the cone so you can pitch sooner. There's no need to be too fastidious when removing the trub though as a certain amount can be metabolised by the yeast and is generally considered to be beneficial.

a couple batches back i made a foolish attempt to brew early in the morning before i had a tee time later that afternoon. i got ALMOST there, and had to leave before i had time to cool the wort to pitching temps. when i got home 5 hours later my wort was 70F and there was 1"-2" of cold break on the bottom of the carboy that i pitched right onto without any worries. given that you have a conical i would guess you could split it down the middle, so to speak, and let it settle for and hour or two, dump the trub, pitch, and then dump again once fermentation kicks in, just like DAAB said. at least thats what i'd do if i had a conical and i wanted to accomplish what you're talking about.

Too late now I know but what I do when I make 5L batches and I don't have an effective filtration method is to allow the sediment to drop in the carboy then rack it off to a second. You do loose a little wort that way though.

did you notice how long it takes to settle in the carboy?

Most of the trub settles within 3-4 hours, but you don't have to wait to pitch the yeast. Yeast is much smaller than trub particles.