Adding your entire Wort to Ferment, oops?

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Schmitz

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After several batches, I thought my wort to fermentor bucket/carboy was perfect. I was able to leave 90% of the trub behind.

....until the past 2 batches.

Enter trub and almost all of it. I cant seperate it. I dont even know what I did differently. I cool 3gallons of wort down in my sink surround by ice. This takes it to 90 degress in about 20min. Then I slowly pick up the wort out of the water, sit on the counter and let it sit another 20min to make its settled. Finally, I sanitize my siphon and drain the wort into the fermentor. The trub wont settle. Whats the trick?

I do use wirfloc tablets 20minutes before end of boil. But maybe here is my problem. Wirfloc is for clarity and not coagulation? I should be dropping some gypsum in there?

Did I just answer my own question? And if so, the next one would be what happens if you drop your entire wort, trub and all into the fermentor, repercussions? Or just let it settle, rack to secondary and all is forgiven?

Thanks for any thoughts fellas.
 
Many people dump the whole thing into their bucket...it will settle out during fermentation and you'll leave it behind when you rack to secondary.
 
I don't sweat the trub. You'll leave it behind in the primary when you transfer to secondary. Some people say that some components of the trub are essential for the yeast.
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Whirfloc de-natures in about five minutes at a boil, so you added it too soon. Irish Moss (actually seaweed) is more forgiving on the timing. The proteins in the moss will make particles clump and drop out.

Get a big strainer or straining bag. I found a bag at the local wine supply place that fits my fermentor. Line the bucket, pour in wort, remove bag. Also works great for fruit in ciders.

But, almost everything will settle out during the ferment.
 
When I made my first batch, I dumped everything (trub and all) into the primary. I didn't have a secondary, so it all sat for a couple of weeks. The result was an extremely bitter beer.

The second was strained a little bit more, but still had pungent flavors. It wasn't until I started straining and using a secondary that I made yummy beer. Now I'm totally into fine-meshed hop bags, grain bags, and straining. Makes for a much easier-to-work-with wort.
 
I pour my wort through a nylon mesh net that is mounted to the top of my plastic primary. I have to keep it on using 4 clamps. Once I poured the wort in and the entire net splashed into the fermenter. Oops! :(

It does a good job of "collecting" any solids in the wort. Except for some of the hop pellet granules. Most of the time the pellets amount to about 2-3 handfulls of hops removed. I usually sparge whatever is caught in the net. :D
 
I am still realtively new at brewing but I have always poured trub and all in the primary. I have also always used a secondary which really helps in settling out all the trub. So far every beer has been great!! For my next batch I will be trying to filter out everything. :D
 
I feel your pain. A couple months ago, I had a batch that the trub settled out in the kettle like a work of art. As I drained the wort out and got to the bottom of the kettle, the trub stayed together and never colapsed. I always add moss and whirlpool after the boil but still can't repeat that perfect break.
I think the type of hops used might be a factor. I also noticed if I put a lid on the kettle while waiting for the break to settle it seems to help.
 
Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

After read this, I relaxed and had a homebrew
 
david_42 said:
Whirfloc de-natures in about five minutes at a boil, so you added it too soon.


Please show me the source for this information. I'm adding with 15 minutes left to boil and it has worked perfectly every time I've used it.
 
ScottT said:
Please show me the source for this information. I'm adding with 15 minutes left to boil and it has worked perfectly every time I've used it.

If the author views this as a thread hijack I will split the thread, but I found some more information about Whirlfloc:

BrewtieBro said:
I did actually hunt down the specialist at the manufacturer of Whirlfloc. The company that makes Whirlfloc tablets is Quest International in Ireland and the contact was Liam Holog? Anyway I learned several interesting things from this very friendly, knowledgeable and interesting man (he even wanted to idle talk for quite some time):

1. Whirlfoc is refined kappa carrageenan with some talcs to help in tabulation.

2. pre-hydrating whirlfloc does nothing at all to increase effectiveness. In fact it's not even water soluable at lower temperatures so all you'd be doing is getting it wet.

3. most interesting: do NOT add whirlfloc any earlier than 10 minutes before end of boil. It acts immediately and at most only really needs 5 minutes in the boil. If you add it earlier you will denature the carrageenan (not quite sure what that means - anyone?).

4. The manufacturer recently has done some google searching and was surprised that it has become so popular amongst homebrewers. Their target is large breweries and they only sell it through large distribution chains so wasn't aware it was going out to LHBS suppliers in the current volume.

5. if you are adding any more than one tablet for 5 gallon batch, don't bother. One tablet is 2.5 times the dosage they recommend. For record: one tablet is 2.5 grams. They recommend 5 grams per hectoliter (2 tablets to about 25 gallons).

Hope this info helps the detail chasers.
 
Thanks a bunch, I'll start adding it at 5 minutes and see what happens. Dropping anything more out of suspension will be awsome.
 
i used to use a large strainer and set it on top of my primary bucket (when i used a bucket!) and poured my wort through that. it helped aerate the wort, cool the wort. now i use an aeration stone for aerating my wort, but that's another thread. when i switched to glass, i would siphon the cooled wort to my 6.5 gallon carboy. all that coldbreak has done it's work and the beer will benefit from it not being in the primary. i feel (just my own belief here) is that it helps clarity and the flavor of the brew. is it something to worry about if you have no other option, no. not at all. just my prefernce. :^)
 
5. if you are adding any more than one tablet for 5 gallon batch, don't bother. One tablet is 2.5 times the dosage they recommend. For record: one tablet is 2.5 grams. They recommend 5 grams per hectoliter (2 tablets to about 25 gallons).
I've never used whirlfloc...not sure I've ever seen it. Is it possible to easily break the tablets in half to make them go a bit further?
 
Been using irish moss here, although I usually forget to throw it in :eek: My funnel has a screen built in (you can remove it though), but the leaf hops tend to easily clog it, so I'm thinking of getting a mig metal mesh strainer to use instead. I did a couple batches where I dumped everthing, hops and all, into the primary and they came out fine.
 
BeeGee said:
Is it possible to easily break the tablets in half to make them go a bit further?

You can buy pill-cutters at most pharmacies. My sister-in-law has to take some medication daily, but the pills are twice her dosage so she uses the little plastic doo-dad to snap them all in half cleanly. (It's basically like a small paper cutter... a little lever with a sharp blade.)

-walker
 
those wirlfloc tabs are as hard as stone. i dont think they even make a pill cutter big enough to fit it inside of. I just whack mine w/ a hammer.
 
It depends on the beer, but I do not usually strain the trub when putting the wort into the primary, I also don't like to use a clarifying agent. This way the protiens and hop bits can impart as much flavor as possible until I siphon to my secondary.

The exception I have to this a light bodied beer that I lager and want fairly clear.
 
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