About Irish Moss

Does straining the wort remove the irish moss and its effects?

Also, Palmer states in "how to brew" that Irish moss is not good for extract brews, anyone know why?

i was hopeing someone would answer this, i have never herd this and searched and didnt find answers. can u remember where in the book u read this?

Irish moss causes the protiens in your beer to coagulate into larger, heavier clumps and fall out of suspension quicker. straining will not reduce its effect. as to extract brewing, I can't answer that question.

In extract brewing there is very little benefit to irish moss (indeed if any at all). The manufacturing of the extract involves boiling and a hot break so there is really very little protein matter to help precipitate.

In extract brewing, straining the wort will not remove it (unless it's a very fine strainer, more of a cheesecloth or filter) however it will settle out immediately and simply be a portion of the trub.

It can be safely omitted for extract brewing - indeed many people don't use it even for partial mash and all-grain brewing.

spottedbass said:

i was hopeing someone would answer this, i have never herd this and searched and didnt find answers. can u remember where in the book u read this?

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Yes it is right here, confusing isnt it? I wonder why it wouldnt work on extract bathches.

It is on page 281 **appendix C** of "How to brew" in a table it states " irish moss is a protein coagulant that is a good clarifier for almost all worts, though not recomended for high adjunct or extract-based worts.

This is per John Palmers "how to brew".

Can anyone shed some light here?

Bradsul gave the answer.

Extract has already been boiled and gone through the hot break and been filtered/removed.

It's been done by the manufactures so adding the IM is redundant.

BrooZer said:

Yes it is right here, confusing isnt it? I wonder why it wouldnt work on extract bathches.

It is on page 281 **appendix C** of "How to brew" in a table it states " irish moss is a protein coagulant that is a good clarifier for almost all worts, though not recomended for high adjunct or extract-based worts.

This is per John Palmers "how to brew".

Can anyone shed some light here?

Click to expand...

SORRY, when I wrote this there were no other answers yet. It appeared today after people already answered the questions.

THANKS!

So, the use of the Whirlfoc tablets, as they are a blend of Irish moss and purified carrageen, is redundant also????

Bills Brew said:

So, the use of the Whirlfoc tablets, as they are a blend of Irish moss and purified carrageen, is redundant also????

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Any fining agent meant for the boil is basically redundant in an extract brew.

I don't know. Every batch I've made in the past few years has been an extract brew and I've use IM or Whirlfloc in most of them and there has been a serious amount of protein trub precipitated out all of them.

Hey, if it works for you the cool.

I have a hard time believing the assertion (heard from many people) that extract has already gone through a boil and thus the hot break has already been removed. No offense to Orfy, but I can't reconcile that with my direct experience and from what I understand of the extract making process.

Here is a photo of the hot break I get from a high-quality dry malt extract:



No, that isn't undissolved DME.

From what I understand of the extract making process (at least for high quality extract), water is removed from the wort after collection by having it undergo a low temperature boil under low atmospheric pressure. This, to me, doesn't translate to a normal kettle boil, so it seems reasonable that little or no hot break has occurred during this process.

I always use Irish Moss or equivalent, but I honestly have not conducted a real-life experiment to see if it makes a difference with extract brewing.

I'm not trying to start a holy war, really-- I honestly just don't understand why people think extract doesn't give a hot break. If I'm wrong on any of this, please enlighten me!

-Steve

Whoops, one small correction. That photo was from using liquid malt extract, not dry.

I think my memory needs some Irish Moss.

-Steve

Did you ever notice the huge gel-like substance on the bottom of the cook pot, after cooling the wort? I think it it is a bazillion microscopic particles in suspension, looking like a gel. I just pour the whole thing into the fermentor and stir it up to aerate for the yeast, but it still eventually settles to the bottom with the yeast.

My $.02

I think the proteins come from the steeping grains, not the extract. My experience is that the extract by itself doesn't require any classifiers. When I've used no-boil / all extract kits, I never use classifier and the beer comes out clear. However, when I've made beer with steeping grains and extract, I use irish moss and have had a lot of protein trub. I haven't tried a extract w/ steeping gains without irish moss, so I don't know how clear it would be. I have made a partial mash and forgot the irish moss and the beer was very cloudy. It was a wheat beer, but it seemed more cloudy then normal for a wheat beer.

SavageSteve said:

Whoops, one small correction. That photo was from using liquid malt extract, not dry.
-Steve

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That correlates with my extract brewing experiences from many moons ago too. Regularly saw hot break from LME, rarely so from DME.

No offence.

I'm talking about theory not experience. Happy to be proven wrong by experience.
I've only ever brewed a few extract brews.

My only experience is with DME as well. Even the addition of steeping grains made no change to the amount of trub I had. Sounds like when using LME it is beneficial.

Regardless it won't hurt your beer whether you leave it out or include it, strain it or don't.

Orfy's got one up on all of us USA'ers - if I'm not mistaken he collects his own Irish Moss!

Only when in Ireland.