Oy! Protein Rest?

Wow. I'm at the tail end of my 5 ag brewing session, and it's my second using american 2 row. I'm amazed at the hot break material! It's huge and chunky--marble sized chunks. Is this a difference between American 2 row and British pale (like maris otter, for example)? Do I need to do a protein rest? I'd love any advice from the veteran ag'ers.

Monk

There is virtually no malt available for homebrewers which needs a protein rest anymore. A single infusion will do just about anything IMO. There are definately exceptions; mashes with lots of cereals like unmalted wheat, or a Pilsner where I might consider a decoction to coax out some extra maltiness.

But the protein rest, I personally wouldn't bother unless the malt was specifically sold as under-modified.

Monk said:

Wow. I'm at the tail end of my 5 ag brewing session, and it's my second using american 2 row. I'm amazed at the hot break material! It's huge and chunky--marble sized chunks. Is this a difference between American 2 row and British pale (like maris otter, for example)? Do I need to do a protein rest? I'd love any advice from the veteran ag'ers.

Monk

Click to expand...

I tend to end up with a lot of break trub. I ended up using a 5 gallon paint strainer cloth around my wort chiller, submerged into the cooled kettle of wort to create a clean "pool" of wort. That pool is where I'd siphon from into the primary.

Then I'd pour the leftover sludge into a large colandar with a paper towel and let it drain into a pot (1-2 hours).

Nevertheless, your current 5-7 inches of large sediment will get processed by the yeast down to about 1 - 1 1/4 inches which you can siphon around when moving to your secondary.

Not to worry.

I use whole hops or hop plugs and it forms a hop filter through which I siphon my wort from the brew kettle. I get very clear runnings into my fermenter.