WhirlFloc Stole My Wort

Saturday was a mixed bag of outcomes as far as brewing goes for me. The good news was that my new MLT seemed to work really well. It didn't leak, held temperature and filtered clear wort after ~2 quarts of vorlauf.

The bad news was that I missed my gravity by about 8 points, and I don't think the new MLT was to blame.

This was my first attempt at a 10 gallon batch, and my first partial boil brew. It's also only the second time I've used WhirlFloc, and it might be the last.

I brewed a partial mash RyePA from Northern Brewer, so double this and you've got my recipe. The mash, mash out and sparge produced ~7 gallons of sweet dark wort. The boil went well, but I didn't quite boil off as much as probably needed to, especially since that late LME addition added about a gallon of volume. I chilled it to 100, gave it a good whirlpool stir and let it sit for about 20 minutes. When I opened up the ball valve on my kettle, I saw sludge draining out. So, I sanitized my auto-siphon and went that route. When I got down to the thick flocked sludge at the bottom, my bottling bucket (yes, bottling bucket - gimme just a second) was filled to just over the 5 gallon mark. I had 2.75 gallons of water in each of my two fermenting pails, so after a stir in the bottling bucket to make sure it was well mixed, I distributed the wort evenly between them, giving me just over 5.25 gallons in each one.

My target gravity was 1.061. I hit 1.052 in one and 1.054 in the other.

I emptied nearly a gallon and a half of sludgy wort from my brew kettle into the kitchen drain. That's nearly a quarter of my ending boil volume. Very dissapointing.

On a side note, I pitched rehydrated S-04 into one and rehydrated US-05 into the other. The S-04 was chugging away in a few hours, and has now slowed significantly. I'm still waiting on the airlock on the US-05 fermenter to start bubbling (~40 hours later).

Whirlfloc tablets are just concentrated Irish moss. It just helps clear the beer and prevent chill haze. I use it all the time with no ill effect.

Meh, I transfer 98% of the wort from my BIAB boil kettle to my fermenter (with a WF addition). Yes Whirlfloc does increase cold break (its supposed to!!), but theres no reason it can't go into the fermenter. I leave only the last ~ 2% of wort in the boil kettle as its almost all hop trub. If you have ever left a SG gravity sample in your sample jar for 6-8 hours, you will see just how compact the break will become and how clear the wort will be.

I've whirlpooled on occasion, left behind significant wort, and detected no difference in the final product. Just less finished beer. I say continue to use Whirlfloc. Its extremely good at its intended purpose of precipitating hot/cold break and eliminating chill haze.

solbes said:

Meh, I transfer 98% of the wort from my BIAB boil kettle to my fermenter. Yes Whirlfloc does increase cold break (its supposed to!!), but theres no reason it can't go into the fermenter. I leave only the last ~ 2% of wort in the boil kettle as its almost all hop trub.

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+1

This is my experience as well. That cold break really does compact into the trub in the fermenter. I leave behind about 1 quart of hop solids mostly in the kettle. The hops precipitate faster. That protein bound to the Whirflock does not in any way diminish the flavor and quality of my beers.

I don't do a lot of extract brewing these days, but my guess is that you didn't fully mix in the LME that you added at the end, and so what you dumped was 1.5 gallons of thick wort/syrup/trub. Trub is going to be there no matter whether you use whirlfloc or not; it just does a better job at coagulating certain proteins than a normal cold break without it.

solbes said:

Meh, I transfer 98% of the wort from my BIAB boil kettle to my fermenter (with a WF addition). Yes Whirlfloc does increase cold break (its supposed to!!), but theres no reason it can't go into the fermenter. I leave only the last ~ 2% of wort in the boil kettle as its almost all hop trub. If you have ever left a SG gravity sample in your sample jar for 6-8 hours, you will see just how compact the break will become and how clear the wort will be.

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That's what I did the first time I used Whirlfloc. I did notice extra trub at the bottom of the fermenter when I racked to the bottling bucket. I haven't opened a bottle yet; they'll be ready this weekend. When I did it that way, I chilled with my immersion chiller down to about 80, transferred to the fermenter and put it in the fermentation chamber to finish cooling before I pitched. When I lifted the lid to pitch, I noticed swirls of coagulated particulate matter as a result of the Whirlfloc and the paint mixer aeration. That's when I wondered if I'd used the Whirlfloc correctly, so I did some reading and settled on the method I used this time. Maybe I misunderstood what I'd read...

weirdboy: thanks for the suggestion, but no there's no chance that the LME wasn't well mixed in. It was added slowly before the last 15 minutes of the boil, constantly stirring, and stirred some more after adding to prevent scorching it when I returned it to heat.

How much whirlfloc did you use? I used an entire tablet on a 6 gallon batch and threw it in at 15 minutes left in the boil once and had the same issues as you. Now I use a half a tablet for 6 and a full tablet for 12 gallon batches. I also throw it in at 5 minutes instead of 15. I haven't had the problem since and whirlfloc still does it's job, just mostly in the fermenter.

Roughly a half a tablet at 10 minutes.

Are you meaning to say that the Whirfloc caused you to miss your gravity? If that is the case, you are incorrect in my opinion.

I'm meaning to say exactly what I said.

I did a partial boil of concentrated wort and diluted it to the final volume. If I didn't use all of the concentrate because the Whirlfloc created a goopy mess that I didn't want to transfer to my fermenters, then my final product was more diluted. More diluted will result in lower gravity.

We hear ya, but you should be fine to transfer it all... No worries!!!

did you check your preboil gravity? possible that you didn't get as high of efficiency as you were predicting

if you didn't boil off enough water your gravity would be lower with a higher volume

dep how much you wort you left in the bottom it would also impact your final gravity

terrapinj said:

1.did you check your preboil gravity? possible that you didn't get as high of efficiency as you were predicting

2.if you didn't boil off enough water your gravity would be lower with a higher volume

3.dep how much you wort you left in the bottom it would also impact your final gravity

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1. I didn't. I kind of thought about it on-the-fly during the process, but didn't do it because it wasn't on my previously prepared mental checklist. And, because I thought the extraction looked pretty good, and didn't think it would be a big deal.

2. Yep, that probably had an impact as well.

3. Nearly a gallon and a half. It was a fustercluck combination of all sorts of mishaps.

terrapinj said:

did you check your preboil gravity? possible that you didn't get as high of efficiency as you were predicting

if you didn't boil off enough water your gravity would be lower with a higher volume

dep how much you wort you left in the bottom it would also impact your final gravity

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Without knowing your pre-boil gravity, I think it's tough to discern where your losses were, but the fact that 1.5 gallons(!) of wort went down the drain certainly couldn't have helped your efficiency. Do you have a kettle screen or false bottom on your boil kettle? I wouldn't have any qualms about letting stuff that makes it through a screen/false bottom into your fermenter. That stuff will just precipitate out.

what temperature was it when you measured the gravity? I could be wrong on this, but hydrometers are calibrated for a certain temperature, usually around room temp.

Wake-Forest-Azeotropes said:

what temperature was it when you measured the gravity? I could be wrong on this, but hydrometers are calibrated for a certain temperature, usually around room temp.

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Good point. Also, how well did you stir the wort after you mixed it with the water? Is there any possibility there could have been stratification with the higher density solution being on the bottom?

kuphish said:

Good point. Also, how well did you stir the wort after you mixed it with the water? Is there any possibility there could have been stratification with the higher density solution being on the bottom?

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I think the issues is that he added too much water to bring his batch up to 5 gallons because the proteins the Whirlfloc coagulated scared him.

Pour that into your fermenter next time, just stop when you hit the hop particles. It'll settle out and be buried when the yeast floccs.

danielbt said:

I think the issues is that he added too much water to bring his batch up to 5 gallons because the proteins the Whirlfloc coagulated scared him.

Poor that into your fermenter next time, just stop when you hit the hop particles. It'll settle out and be buried when the yeast floccs.

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I agree. Just pointing out some other things to take into consideration.

kuphish said:

I agree. Just pointing out some other things to take into consideration.

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And those points are well taken. Thank you. I was in a bit of a rush right at the very end (trying to finish in time to get ready for my 20th high school reunion - I'm getting old!) and did not adjust for temperature. The last time I did adjust for temperature, it only made about a point's worth of difference. This time, now that I think about it, the temperature could've been as high as 80, which would make up 2.5 points. I need to pay better attention next time.

That still doesn't change my astonishment at the amount of wort I dumped. I'll know next time just to put it right into the fermenter. I guess if I wanted to split a batch as evenly as possible, making both fermenters have as close to the same quality wort to each other as I can, I'll need to transfer immediately after mixing well, and not let the flocced break settle. Which means I'll be transferring more hops sediment than I'm used to. Not a terrible thing, just something else to consider, i guess.

kuphish said:

Without knowing your pre-boil gravity, I think it's tough to discern where your losses were, but the fact that 1.5 gallons(!) of wort went down the drain certainly couldn't have helped your efficiency. Do you have a kettle screen or false bottom on your boil kettle? I wouldn't have any qualms about letting stuff that makes it through a screen/false bottom into your fermenter. That stuff will just precipitate out.

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kuphish said:

Good point. Also, how well did you stir the wort after you mixed it with the water? Is there any possibility there could have been stratification with the higher density solution being on the bottom?

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No screen or false bottom.

It was aerated with a drill and a paint stirrer after diluted.

You can also use a sanitized 5 gallon paint strainer bag to line your bucket you are using to transfer the wort to your primaries. This will remove most all of the trub leaving more room for beer. Not necessary by any means, but I do it especially if I plan on washing the yeast.