Whirlpooling

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el_caro

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Interested to know how many here(BIAB) whirlpools at the end of boil and if so what is your method of achieving a whirlpool and then draining the kettle.

I am guessing most BIABers look for simplicity and do not bother.
 
I just use a spoon and get a nice little whirlpool going then let it settle. I then rack from the side of the pot with my auto-siphon trying to avoid the trub cone that the whirlpooling created.
 
I don't whirlpool (yet). I'm still building up my equipment and my immersion chiller will have a whirlpool attachment on it once I can afford a pump and put a ball valve on the kettle.
 
I take my rinsed, sanitized BIAB bag and line the fermenter with it. Then I pour the chilled kettle contents into the fermenter from a height of 1-2 feet. This aerates the wort nicely. Then I pull the bag and let it drain.

I do stovetop half-sized batches, so I can handle the kettle to do this.
 
I just use a spoon and get a nice little whirlpool going then let it settle. I then rack from the side of the pot with my auto-siphon trying to avoid the trub cone that the whirlpooling created.

I do the exact same process described here. Boil, and chill using my IC per the usual, then after removing the chiller I will use my brew spoon to get a nice smooth whirlpool going for a minute or two, then I usually cover my pot and leave it alone for about a half hour while the whirlpool slowly comes to a stop and the wort settles a little. After that I'll rack it over to my fermenter, leaving the bulk of the trub behind.
 
BlackGoat said:
I do the exact same process described here. Boil, and chill using my IC per the usual, then after removing the chiller I will use my brew spoon to get a nice smooth whirlpool going for a minute or two, then I usually cover my pot and leave it alone for about a half hour while the whirlpool slowly comes to a stop and the wort settles a little. After that I'll rack it over to my fermenter, leaving the bulk of the trub behind.

Do you use a hop bag/spider or just toss the hops into the boil freestyle?
 
I do the exact same process described here. Boil, and chill using my IC per the usual, then after removing the chiller I will use my brew spoon to get a nice smooth whirlpool going for a minute or two, then I usually cover my pot and leave it alone for about a half hour while the whirlpool slowly comes to a stop and the wort settles a little. After that I'll rack it over to my fermenter, leaving the bulk of the trub behind.

This is what I plan to do as well (once I get back to brewing after this god awful heatwave!). I'm interested to see how it goes with my set up (ball valve with a 90 as a dip tube). I'll report back with results later.
 
Do you use a hop bag/spider or just toss the hops into the boil freestyle?

Nope, just throw them right in. I don't understand why people get so crazy about their hops, and why they use devices to contain them or strain them out. I use pellets and throw them in the boil, never once have I ever had a shred of hops show up in a glass of beer, and that includes a variety of brewing methods. If any end up in the fermenter they will always settle out.
 
Nope, just throw them right in. I don't understand why people get so crazy about their hops, and why they use devices to contain them or strain them out. I use pellets and throw them in the boil, never once have I ever had a shred of hops show up in a glass of beer, and that includes a variety of brewing methods. If any end up in the fermenter they will always settle out.

Good to hear. I use a hop spider mainly because I went through a DIY phase and built stuff I didn't really need :) But I want to simplify things. I have to take the kettle off the stove to put the immersion chiller in (range hood gets in the way) so having to take out the hop spider and put it back in over the IC is a pain in the ass.

I've started to whirlpool the last two batches so I figured I should just ditch the hop spider anyway.

Thanks
 
Nope, just throw them right in. I don't understand why people get so crazy about their hops, and why they use devices to contain them or strain them out. I use pellets and throw them in the boil, never once have I ever had a shred of hops show up in a glass of beer, and that includes a variety of brewing methods. If any end up in the fermenter they will always settle out.

I think that it's just a "new toy" kind of mindset....I know I love gadgets!
 
gotcha, I'm a fan of the DIY gadgets too. Should have mentioned that I have a little homemade aerator device that I attach to my siphon hose to inject some oxygen into the wort as it racks over to the bucket. Simple project (2 minutes) and effective.
 
I think that it's just a "new toy" kind of mindset....I know I love gadgets!

+1

I always throw my pellets right into the boil and have never had any hops show up in my glass. That being said I think they allow people to be a little less patient than I am. I always let my beers ferment for a minimum of 4 weeks and then carefully rack into a keg, set it at 12psi and wait another 2-3 weeks. Same thing if I bottle. Other than a little Irish Moss and lots of waiting, I've never done anything out of my way to get clear beer, but my brews are always very clear.
 
Nope, just throw them right in. I don't understand why people get so crazy about their hops, and why they use devices to contain them or strain them out. I use pellets and throw them in the boil, never once have I ever had a shred of hops show up in a glass of beer, and that includes a variety of brewing methods. If any end up in the fermenter they will always settle out.


+ infinity :)
 
Nope, just throw them right in. I don't understand why people get so crazy about their hops, and why they use devices to contain them or strain them out. I use pellets and throw them in the boil, never once have I ever had a shred of hops show up in a glass of beer, and that includes a variety of brewing methods. If any end up in the fermenter they will always settle out.

I don't think people are very worried about them winding up in the kettle. I think most are concern with clogging equipment like plate and counter flow chillers.
 
I don't think people are very worried about them winding up in the kettle. I think most are concern with clogging equipment like plate and counter flow chillers.

This makes sense, but I think there are a lot of people going through great effort to strain out everything they can in the kettle who aren't using pumps/plate chillers/etc
 
I'll be whirlpooling with a spoon in future. Did my first batch the other day and was shocked at the 1-2 inches of trub that appeared in my fermenter within hours of transferring.
I figure I just need to give the wort and swirl and leave it for half an hour or so, instead of dumping it straight in to the fermenter.
 
I'll be whirlpooling with a spoon in future. Did my first batch the other day and was shocked at the 1-2 inches of trub that appeared in my fermenter within hours of transferring.
I figure I just need to give the wort and swirl and leave it for half an hour or so, instead of dumping it straight in to the fermenter.

yes, but the trub in the fermenter isn't doing anything bad to your beer or causing any trouble. Even though I tend to do a little whirlpool before transferring over to primary, I never worry about having trub end up in my fermenter. I used to just dump the entire contents of the kettle into my primary and have always been able to get clear beer.
 
I've tried whirlpooling twice without much luck. I use a hop spider and was wondering if throwing hops right into the boil will actually help with whirlpooling (the trub will have something to grab on to while spinning). Any thoughts?
 
I've done two BIAB batches now with a friend of mine. He's been brewing on his RIMS system for many years, and I've been brewing with him for about the last 4 years. We both noticed that whirlpooling before cooling in a counterflow chiller did not give the same result as we've always seen with RIMS mashing. The BIAB whirlpooling left quite a bit of suspended hops and trub floating at the bottom of the kettle as the wort was drained out, even with a Whirfloc tablet added. With the RIMS, we usually see a compact cone of trub. But, the BIAB trub seemed less dense, almost greasy. Much more of it ended up in the fermenter than similar brews using the RIMS approach. I think this is likely due to the fact that we've used double milled grains. Even so, these beers turned out excellent, with nice clarity. So in the end, try whirlpooling with a paddle or long spoon when you shut off the heat in the boil kettle, but don't be too concerned if you find more trub in the fermenter. As for hop gunk getting stuck in a CFC, a torpedo tube or hop bag might be a good way to prevent clogs.
 
I whirlpool using a pump and let it settle before racking to a carboy. Used a hop spider for a while but have good clean beer without one.
 
When I have tried the "spoon in the bk" method, after settling there is just a layer evenly spread along the bottom. Are you supposed to drain as the whirlpool is still spinning to make the trub cone? If so I'm going to need to get a bulkhead and spigot, might as well get a sight glass too. *sigh* it never ends haha
 
I always throw my pellets right into the boil and have never had any hops show up in my glass.

I have. On a heavily pellet-dryhopped batch in which I got real clumsy... during the trip from kettle to carboy, then carboy to bottling bucket. Embarrassing.

Roughly 1/3 of the bottles were affected, though that's largely because after the first 1/3 were gone the mini-trub in each bottle had compacted too much for the hops to float around.

(Yes, there was trub in each bottle. Did I mention I f*#@ed that batch up?)
 
I whirpool with a spoon like others have and use my autosiphon to rack to a carboy but I modify my whirlpool slightly. I tilt the brewpot to one side about an inch or so once I finish stirring and put the autosiphon in on the high side after everything settles. Whenever I whirpooled in the past, as the pot drained the break/hop or whatever extraneous material was in there would get drawn to the siphon even with a good cone in the middle. With the slight tilt, the material will collect to one side and It's tougher for the sediment to travel 'uphill'. I almost always leave a pint or more in the brewpot anyway to avoid the break material, but this way keeps it as clear as I can hope for. Works for me anyway. :)
 
Thus far I have used the whirpool method with VERY LITTLE success. I use a sanitized spoon, stir like mad for a minute, put the lid on the kettle and then wait 20 minutes. Each time I am rather disappointed that I do not see the nice trub cone often eluded to. On my recent batch I added another measure of trub control - a paint strainer bag. I filtered my wort through the strainer bag on its way into my fermenter (Speidel). This collected A LOT of trub, so much I had a hard time pulling it out of the fermenter. I think my whirlpool lacks efficiency because I have a pickup tube and a future whirlpool (with use of pump) fitting welded inside and that disrupts the whirlpool. For those looking to prefilter, try the paint strainer bag as I feel you will find them very suitable to your needs.
 
I tried my first whirlpool last week and also had miserable results. I was afraid all the fittings and diptubes in the BK would disrupt the circular flow too much so I drained from the BK through my plate chiller and into an older BK with no holes or attachments. I then stirred for 5 minutes, let sit for 12 minutes and while there was a thin layer of trub on the bottom, it was certainly no cone ... and it all came loose as I siphoned off the side so I ended up just dumping the entire amount into the carboy. I then brought it down to pitching temp (54 for this lager) and then racked it off an inch of trub into a clean carboy before pitching.

I'm in the process of building a keggle and will have a recirc port for cooling and whirlpooling, we'll see how that goes but I don't have high hopes. I'll probably end up doing what others have suggested and draining the BK into a bucket lined with a paint strainer bag (or would my BIAB bag work fine for this?), pull that out and then pour into the carboy. It's an extra step but won't take more than a couple minutes. Probably not worth it for most beers, but on lighter lagers I'll do it to elimiate any possibility of trub induced off flavors.
 
Depends what your expectations are. You aren't going to get a solid cone in the center while stirring with a spoon as you would with a proper recirculation system. However, you can get a nice separation of clear wort from the trub. I don't worry if some of the trub gets into my fermenter, it just settles out and I still get perfect clarity on most brews. I just look at this as that its better than not doing anything and it really doesn't require any extra work, its just something I do while cleaning up post-boil.
 
I've tried whirlpooling twice without much luck. I use a hop spider and was wondering if throwing hops right into the boil will actually help with whirlpooling (the trub will have something to grab on to while spinning). Any thoughts?
This is what I do; the layer of hops in the trub cone seems to hold things together and reduce the effect of the syphon pulling up any trub.

When I have tried the "spoon in the bk" method, after settling there is just a layer evenly spread along the bottom. Are you supposed to drain as the whirlpool is still spinning to make the trub cone? If so I'm going to need to get a bulkhead and spigot, might as well get a sight glass too. *sigh* it never ends haha
I cool by stirring around the outside (So that the spoon is held vertical) for 5 minutes while the pot is submerged in an ice water bath (colander underneath so that ice water can recirculate) with a running tap and slightly draining plug. 5 or 10 minutes after the stir I put the lid on the pot and make sure no one touches it for the next 20 minutes to half an hour. I've never not had a nice cone (although it is easily disturbed so I have to be careful when syphoning), although as mentioned above dried hops are just thrown into the boil (no idea what would happen with pellets or if hops were strained out beforehand somehow).
 
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