Racking wort from keggle techniques

Hey all —
I'm trying to decide exactly how I'm going to assemble my keggles. To do this, I need to decide how I plan to rack to my fermentation vessel, and I need your help.

All I've done in the past is stick my pot in an ice bath, and drop an immersion chiller inside of it. This typically dropped all of the crud to the bottom, so I could very easily siphon the wort off the top, leaving the crud in the pot.

There are many reasons I don't think this will work with a full boil in a keggle. I've seen false bottoms, pot scrubbers, copper pipes, etc..

What do you all do? What do your valves look like?

Cheers!

I am going to do the whirlpool method I have my pickup tube on the side of my keggle and my trub cone will be in the center I should have roughly 2 cups if that left in the bottom after all is said and done.





-=Jason=-

Prefer the false bottom. Too much hops & trub for me to use the whirlpool side method as shown above. Full sized FB provides more surface area to handle all the stuff we want to leave in the kettle. I've done hop stopper & bazooka tube, neither of which worked well in my set up.

Does whirlpooling 200-degree wort actually get the trub and hops and such down to the bottom? I've only used an IC, but have noticed that nothing seems to settle until the wort is chilled.

And the false bottom -- did you fabricate your own, or purchase one? Does it work well for hop pellets?

I wonder if a combination of whirlpooling and a false bottom would help? Or would the whirlpooling just force the crud through the false bottom.. hmm...

I use a weldless fitting with a copper dip tube attached. Dip tube is bent/angled so that it pulls from the bottom of the keggle (i.e. that little flat spot in the middle).

I use a hop bag, everything else that is pulled off runs through a CFC and into the fermenter. I don't bother to whirlpool anymore.

broadbill said:

I use a weldless fitting with a copper dip tube attached. Dip tube is bent/angled so that it pulls from the bottom of the keggle (i.e. that little flat spot in the middle).

Click to expand...

That certainly sounds like the cleanest solution.

broadbill said:

I use a hop bag, everything else that is pulled off runs through a CFC and into the fermenter. I don't bother to whirlpool anymore.

Click to expand...

Do you use whole hops or pellets? I use pellets, and have a feeling a bag won't make any difference.

as the odd ball here. I have been use'n my auto siphon, two years now with a keggle and I still havent drilled the hole. and I like it this way. I cool,let it settle and pull clear wort off the top. ahhhhh,one day .....

scsi said:

That certainly sounds like the cleanest solution.

Click to expand...

Also, I don't bother with the copper/stainles scrubbie either--mostly b/c of the hop bag and I could never fit it on in previous versions of my ditube (before I had it at a 90 degree to the bulkhead like Flowmaster's setup).

Do you use whole hops or pellets? I use pellets, and have a feeling a bag won't make any difference.

Click to expand...

I also use pellets and it does work....I use the paint strainer bag that others on this board have used successfully..other bags may not work. I also throw some spoons in there for weight.

buzzkill said:

as the odd ball here. I have been use'n my auto siphon, two years now with a keggle and I still havent drilled the hole. and I like it this way. I cool,let it settle and pull clear wort off the top. ahhhhh,one day .....

Click to expand...

You know, I honestly didn't give that much thought. How do you chill? I've got a small 20ft immersion chiller from AHS that works great for my little stock pot, probably not so much for the keggle.

broadbill said:

I also use pellets and it does work.... I also throw some spoons in there for weight.

Click to expand...

Brilliant!

I bag my hops and that keeps a ton of crap off the bottom.

I'm even odder because I don't even bother letting it settle. The entire contents of my kettle go into the fermenter: hot break, cold break, and any hops that made it through the nylon paint strainer. It get's tossed out with the yeast when I rack the fermented beer.

buzzkill said:

as the odd ball here. I have been use'n my auto siphon, two years now with a keggle and I still havent drilled the hole. and I like it this way. I cool,let it settle and pull clear wort off the top. ahhhhh,one day .....

Click to expand...

scsi said:

You know, I honestly didn't give that much thought. How do you chill? I've got a small 20ft immersion chiller from AHS that works great for my little stock pot, probably not so much for the keggle.




Brilliant!

Click to expand...

I use a 50ft. IC to cool it down.

So, I tried this whirlpooling thing with my irish red minimash last night. I cooled the wort down to about 80 in about 10 minutes with my IC. I then whirlpooled with a stainless spoon, and let it sit for about 15 minutes. I siphoned all I could off of the top, about 2.5 gallons, but couldnt seem to get the bottom to settle out.. I felt like I was tossing a bunch of perfectly good wort.

I did this in my stock pot, not a keggle, though. Maybe I was just impatient, I don't know... That all sounds like it should be a new thread.

As far as my keggle is concerned, I think im going to eventually set up a dip tube that doesnt reach out to the center. Ill also set up a 90° tap about mid-way up the keggle, so I can pump hot wort back in, creating the whirlpool. Eventually.


I closely examined the trub of this batch, and its all very fine. I don't think a false bottom would help me much here, unless its got a very tight mesh.

//thinking out loud

I also use the paint strainer bag to put hops in while I'm boiling...never had any hops make it through the bag yet. They are cheap and very effective.

The whirlpool works ok for me in my keggle, but when I only do a 5 gal brew in my flat bottom kettle it just wont work. So when I get down to the trub line,I will just dump the rest into the fermenter. done and done.