Hop hot trubs = muddy beer

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Ronkas

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Hi all,
i'm on my second attempt to brew all-grain with hop pellets.
The first batch i made a belgian saison, infused hop pellets in boil keeping them in common bags (something like that http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/2191317603/ ) for 15-30 min.
This beer was really muddy, powdery... having none experience i accused malt not well milled, yeast cake stirred/shaked...

But now, when i approached my second batch with same pellets, during chilling, i noticed that wort resulted the same of the previous batch: powdery, really rich in particulate and sediment.
So, i filtered the stuff out the best i can with a cloth before adding yeast, and identified that all of this came from broken hop pellets.

Why i'm getting this? Maybe i'm missing something? Teach me please, for the next time!

Anyway, now she's fermenting well, and being on high krausen there's great turbolence and microscopic bubbles conufsing the overall look, but i can see richness of powdery particulate moving and some of it is now sitcked to the walls or suspended on the foam head, my question is...
at this step there's nothing to do to clear more?

My plan is to rack to secondary when it calms down, see how is it and... what? If i cloth-filtering again when racking or bottling isn't there the risk of stopping fermentation or preclude bottle priming?
 
Sounds completely normal to me. The hops are ground up and pelleted and completely dissolve into small bits and pieces. I think the rest of what you are seeing is the cold break which is all the protein aggregates floating around. Don't worry about it, it's completely normal and will all settle out over time. Relax and have a home brew!

Edit - for spelling
 
Sounds completely normal to me. The hops are ground up and pelleted and completely dissolve into small bits and pieces. I think the rest of what you are seeing is the cold break which is all the protein aggregates floating around. Don't worry about it, it's completely normal and will all settle out over time. Relax and have a home brew!

Edit - for spelling

Thank you for your reply!
What's the normal way to filter the hot trubs made of hops?
Just to know it..?

Have a good day! :mug:
 
Hi all,
i'm on my second attempt to brew all-grain with hop pellets.
The first batch i made a belgian saison, infused hop pellets in boil keeping them in common bags (something like that http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssssyla/2191317603/ ) for 15-30 min.
This beer was really muddy, powdery... having none experience i accused malt not well milled, yeast cake stirred/shaked...

But now, when i approached my second batch with same pellets, during chilling, i noticed that wort resulted the same of the previous batch: powdery, really rich in particulate and sediment.
So, i filtered the stuff out the best i can with a cloth before adding yeast, and identified that all of this came from broken hop pellets.

Why i'm getting this? Maybe i'm missing something? Teach me please, for the next time!

Anyway, now she's fermenting well, and being on high krausen there's great turbolence and microscopic bubbles conufsing the overall look, but i can see richness of powdery particulate moving and some of it is now sitcked to the walls or suspended on the foam head, my question is...
at this step there's nothing to do to clear more?

My plan is to rack to secondary when it calms down, see how is it and... what? If i cloth-filtering again when racking or bottling isn't there the risk of stopping fermentation or preclude bottle priming?

You're asking the wrong question. There isn't any real reason to have clear wort go into the fermenter. The yeast will stir everything up and make a cloudy looking beer anyway.

What you really want is a nice clear beer when you are ready to drink it. I get this and I don't filter out anything. I dump the hop pellets right into the boiling pot, let it mix in as it wishes and dump the whole mess into the fermenter so the yeast can choose to use whatever they want. When the ferment settles down the hop debris will settle and with more time the dormant yeast will settle on top of it. I don't rack to secondary, I just let the beer have enough time in the fermenter to clear. I'm not even terribly careful when racking to the bottling bucket and sometimes get some of the dormant yeast in there. It settles out pretty fast and with some time in the bottles I get really clear beer.
 
Thank you for your reply!
What's the normal way to filter the hot trubs made of hops?
Just to know it..?

Have a good day! :mug:

No problem! I personally filter through a piece of cheese cloth that I have lined a strainer with and it works really well to catch the majority of the junk. I only bother to do this because I hate leaving any liquid behind in the boil kettle and in my early batches that I didn't bother to filter I had little bits of hops floating in every beer I poured... For some reason they never settled out for me so I started straining and haven't had a problem with it ever since.

As RM-MN mentioned, don't worry about cloudiness in your primary, the yeast stir everything up and make it really hazy. It will all drop out though with time and your beer will be great! Hope that helps! :mug:
 
Cold and time will produce nice clear beer. Don't worry about filtering before fermentation...let it all settle out with time...whirlfloc is a good product to add to the kettle to precipitate proteins...muddy beer into the fermenter...clear beer out is what matters when it hits the glass...cheers!
 
No problem! I personally filter through a piece of cheese cloth that I have lined a strainer with and it works really well to catch the majority of the junk. I only bother to do this because I hate leaving any liquid behind in the boil kettle and in my early batches that I didn't bother to filter I had little bits of hops floating in every beer I poured... For some reason they never settled out for me so I started straining and haven't had a problem with it ever since.

As RM-MN mentioned, don't worry about cloudiness in your primary, the yeast stir everything up and make it really hazy. It will all drop out though with time and your beer will be great! Hope that helps! :mug:

About filtering hot trubs, i got documents on it and i discovered the stir whirlpool thingy, that's a great idea!
For the next try i think i'll continue on filtering method prior fermentation... maybe i'll use custom hop bags made of cloth (cotton? do you use "cotton stockings-like" bags as pictured above or other types?) to reduce at minimum the releasing of trubs, plus whirlpooling. The sedimentation will do the rest.

However, let me go a little out of topic for sharing my joy!
WY1728 i used for this peat porter is a great horse! It had a great primary and now, just 4 days post brew the beer is come down from 1074 OG to 1020 (1018 extimated FG)! I'm fermenting at 20°C to enrich the beer of esters and phenols to enhance peat aroma.

I haven't racked to secondary yet, and i'm quite decided on not to do it.
Today i tasted the sample used for gravity and it is really really good.

Just a question: i got some of the sample in the fridge and now it seems to have two phases (very hard to see) plus a little layer of yeast in the bottom.
Do this will present in the final beer?
I'm quite sure not, because opening the finished beer the fizz will mix up all again... but i would glad to listen your opinions!

Have good homebrews! :D
 
About filtering hot trubs, i got documents on it and i discovered the stir whirlpool thingy, that's a great idea!
For the next try i think i'll continue on filtering method prior fermentation... maybe i'll use custom hop bags made of cloth (cotton? do you use "cotton stockings-like" bags as pictured above or other types?) to reduce at minimum the releasing of trubs, plus whirlpooling. The sedimentation will do the rest.

However, let me go a little out of topic for sharing my joy!
WY1728 i used for this peat porter is a great horse! It had a great primary and now, just 4 days post brew the beer is come down from 1074 OG to 1020 (1018 extimated FG)! I'm fermenting at 20°C to enrich the beer of esters and phenols to enhance peat aroma.

I haven't racked to secondary yet, and i'm quite decided on not to do it.
Today i tasted the sample used for gravity and it is really really good.

Just a question: i got some of the sample in the fridge and now it seems to have two phases (very hard to see) plus a little layer of yeast in the bottom.
Do this will present in the final beer?

I'm quite sure not, because opening the finished beer the fizz will mix up all again... but i would glad to listen your opinions!

Have good homebrews! :D

It's hard for me to see what you are seeing (especially without pictures ;)) but I think you are seeing the beer beginning to clear as the dormant yeast drops out. That would explain the yeast on the bottom too. Give your beer more time in the fermenter so the yeast complete the ferment and much of the dormant yeast will end up on the bottom of the fermenter. This will mean less yeast on the bottom of your bottle too.
 
Yes that is all trub starting to settle as clearing starts. I personally would leave it in the primary for two or three weeks then rack to a secondary for another two weeks making sure to leave behind all the sediment in the primary when you rack. This will get most of the sediment out of your beer. After that, bottle it and It will then finish clearing as it carbonates.
Racking is not necessary but I find it speeds up the clearing process. It's really a personal choice. Good luck!
 
It's hard for me to see what you are seeing (especially without pictures ;)) but I think you are seeing the beer beginning to clear as the dormant yeast drops out. That would explain the yeast on the bottom too. Give your beer more time in the fermenter so the yeast complete the ferment and much of the dormant yeast will end up on the bottom of the fermenter. This will mean less yeast on the bottom of your bottle too.
Yes that is all trub starting to settle as clearing starts. I personally would leave it in the primary for two or three weeks then rack to a secondary for another two weeks making sure to leave behind all the sediment in the primary when you rack. This will get most of the sediment out of your beer. After that, bottle it and It will then finish clearing as it carbonates.
Racking is not necessary but I find it speeds up the clearing process. It's really a personal choice. Good luck!

In the fermenter (20C, no fermentation active), the two phases are not detectable, so I'm gonna bottling it today, also because it's better for me in terms of organization.
Isn't a two-three weeks period in the fermenter with fermentation finished too much? According to some manuals there would be risk of autolysis with releasing of bad flavors.

For next time, I usually only use this in my IPAs but i use this in my keggle works awesome. Saves me a lot of wasted hop trub http://byo.com/component/resource/article/2494-build-a-hop-spider-projects

Thank you for sharing!! This is what I imagined to build for my next batch!
Good!
 
Isn't a two-three weeks period in the fermenter with fermentation finished too much? According to some manuals there would be risk of autolysis with releasing of bad flavors.

I've gone 9 weeks in the primary with no autolosys and I have reports of over 8 months with good results. Autolosys is part of the past wrapped with results from big breweries and perpetuated by out-of-date manuals that nobody has bothered to update. Those manuals should be burned.
 
The reason you saw the different layers (the trub settling out) in your fridge sample is because you were cold crashing it. Lowering the temperature like that will help all the suspended junk settle out. If you can cold crash your carboy for a day or two before you bottle you will see the same results in the carboy and have much less sediment on the bottom of your bottles.
 
I've gone 9 weeks in the primary with no autolosys and I have reports of over 8 months with good results. Autolosys is part of the past wrapped with results from big breweries and perpetuated by out-of-date manuals that nobody has bothered to update. Those manuals should be burned.

Good to know! Thanks!

The reason you saw the different layers (the trub settling out) in your fridge sample is because you were cold crashing it. Lowering the temperature like that will help all the suspended junk settle out. If you can cold crash your carboy for a day or two before you bottle you will see the same results in the carboy and have much less sediment on the bottom of your bottles.

Yes, I agree. :)
 
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