Question on cooling wort and getting protien to settle

Hello everyone. I need some direction.
I’ve brewed 4 5 gallon extract batches (some with steeping grains) so far. I’ve been using the Brewer’s Best Brand kits and I’ve worked through their IPA, Weizbier, Scotch Ale, and this weekend I put their Kolsch in primary. So far each batch has been drinkable, tasty, and good-natured. Overall I am pleased.

However, there is one aspect of brewday that has me perplexed, anxious, and annoyed. The ‘wort cooling’ phase is making me nuts. Here is the background:

•I brew in a 21L pot and cool in an ice bath in my sink. After evaporation during the boil, there is a little more than 3 gallons in the pot that needs to be cooled.
•I use one of the fizzy Irish moss tablets between 15 to 20 minutes prior to flameout.
•I refresh the ice bath at least once per batch to promote effective cooling.
•It is winter, so water from the tap is very cold so it is pretty easy to get the batch down to 75 deg or so after 25 minutes.

The problem is that I can’t get the protein trub to settle. Most of the time, I get a good break, but the gunk floats there, submerged midway in the wort like a bunch of lace or a dying jellyfish. It is nebulous and will create clouds of gunk if disturbed. It is definitely NOT down at the bottom of the pot where I wish it would go so I could siphon properly. So the siphon picks up a lot of this gunk and some of it goes into primary. I stop the transfer when the stuff about to go into the siphon looks more like white crud than wort and am usually left with 12 to 18 ounces of trub filled liquid in the pot.

I was under the impression that this gunk should be left in the bottom of the pot, but what is going on here that mine won’t settle? Do I need to leave it sit for longer than 25 minutes for the gunk to fall to the bottom? Is that appropriate? I thought one needed to get wort cooled and into primary ASAP.

Does anyone have any pictures of what a cooling wort should look like for an extract brew?

Help and encouragement requested, thanks! -NG

Naa, there will lots of floating gunk. This will of course settle during fermentation if it gets in. Just use a Strainer!

Don't sweat the gunk too much. many people here throw the whole lot into the fermenter anyway. The gunk is not neccesarily a friend, but it is in no way your enemy. Don't worry about it.

PS Great user name!

I rarely strain (unless I've used tons of hops) and dump it all into the fermenter. I can't think of a practical way to get the hot break and cold break out- it goes right through a strainer. I still manage to make crystal clear beer, without any finings beyond the Whirlfloc. Here's a picture of an IPA:


It's hard to see in the picture with the poor lighting, but it's absolutely clear. All of the "gunk" settles out as trub, and you can siphon clear beer off of the bottom when it's done.

Nice looking brew, Yooper.

So... if you're doing an extract brew and you've used bags for your steeping grains and hop additions, you can just dump the entire kettle into your primary when it's cooled? I thought that I'd read that the gunk in the kettle would effectivly 'slime' the yeast cells and cause them to die or at least inhibit their activity to the point that fermentation may not get going before bateria get established.

Thats interesting. Can anyone suggest some sources discussing this in more detail? N_G

it's much harder to screw up beer than people realize. That said there are some very effective ways to screw up beer each and every time. If you have good sanitation then your beer will be fine.

Lots of people 'pour' into the fermenter without any negative effects. I'm not that experienced a brewer, but i do read a lot and i don't ever recall the problem of trub 'sliming' the yeast. You probably don't want to pour your yeast in first, but i have to imagine that the two will be pretty well mixed when you pour your wort into the bucket.

I probably read about the slime effect in C. Papazian's Joy of HB book; I'll check later.

A google search brought this up from Hot Trub: Formation and Removal
by Ron Barchet....

"Effective removal of hot trub before fermentation is critical because the trub can smear the yeast's cell walls, impeding the transport of substances in and out of the cell, which can lead to head retention problems, poor flavor stability, and harsh bitterness in the palate of the beer."

nutty_gnome said:

I probably read about the slime effect in C. Papazian's Joy of HB book; I'll check later.

A google search brought this up from Hot Trub: Formation and Removal
by Ron Barchet....

"Effective removal of hot trub before fermentation is critical because the trub can smear the yeast's cell walls, impeding the transport of substances in and out of the cell, which can lead to head retention problems, poor flavor stability, and harsh bitterness in the palate of the beer."

Click to expand...

I've heard of possible problems with head retention from allowing the hot break into the fermenter. I was mostly responding to the part you included in your last post about the yeast not getting going fast enough before bacteria took hold.

I think the practice of limiting the amount of trub and break material you allow into your fermenter is a good one. I just didn't want people in the "beginners" section to worry that pouring the wort into the fermenter was going to ruin their beer. It wont. It may have an impact on other aspects of the beer's quality in respect to judging styles, but it wont ruin it.

How long are you leaving your beers in primary? Do you secondary? Have you noticed that your bottled beer hasn't cleared enough?

My current 'goal' for my beer is to be clear. I use irish moss, but still have chill haze issues. My next step is to try gelatin, which should help remove the proteins clouding my beer. I probably need to worry about what break material gets moved over, but i haven't focused on that part of my process yet so i don't know if that is where my problems come from. Several people have recommended Whirlfloc tablets over irish moss, that might be worth a try and rectify the situation for you.

I guess what i am asking is, are you worried about the break getting transferred because you have cloudy beer or because you've read that you need to be careful about transferring it? One is a real issue that will have to be systematically checked, the other is borrowing trouble (which i am very good at, as well).

I guess I'm borrowing trouble at this point. I just don't like the idea of losing some perfectly good wort because it was mixed up with some nasty white gunk. If the white gunk would settle faster I'd be happier. So far my beers have been fine.

I know I said I used irish moss, but it was actually whirlfloc and that made a big difference between beers with a flocculent and those without. I was just wondering if anyone else worried about this stuff or took some proactive measures to prevent the issue. N_G

You could always let it settle more. If you keep it covered and are careful i suspect you wouldn't risk too much contamination. The other alternative is to step up to a work chiller and see if you can cool the wort even faster.

Again, though, until you notice you are having head retention problems, i wouldn't worry about it too much. Especially since head retention problems have many different causes, including dirty glassware (which is always the easiest to try to correct).

I worried about getting the hot break in my fermenter the first time i brewed using my very limited setup. I worried about it right up until i decided i had to dump it into the fermenter because i couldn't figure out another way to easily transfer the wort at that moment. Since then i've gotten bigger kettle, but i still don't worry too much. I just give it a long primary, add some gelatin and call it good.

I am only on batch #2, and for each when I strained my wort into the fermenter I also poured it through my steeping bag (re-usable fine mesh kind), which really helped filter out all the hops and other large particulate matter. In both 5 gallon batches I ended up with 1 to 2 pints of crud in the bag. Now I am curious if I filtered out too much stuff. Was there any good stuff in the bag that should have gone into the fermenter?

YooperBrew said:

I rarely strain (unless I've used tons of hops) and dump it all into the fermenter. I can't think of a practical way to get the hot break and cold break out- it goes right through a strainer. I still manage to make crystal clear beer, without any finings beyond the Whirlfloc. Here's a picture of an IPA:

It's hard to see in the picture with the poor lighting, but it's absolutely clear. All of the "gunk" settles out as trub, and you can siphon clear beer off of the bottom when it's done.

Click to expand...

Yooper wears a Volcom hat?

Mind = blown.

Donner said:

I just give it a long primary, add some gelatin and call it good.

Click to expand...

After using the gelatin, do you have to add a shot of yeast on bottling day to be assured that the bottles will carbonate properly? I think clear beer is an excellent goal and am curious about using gelatin. N_G

i admit i haven't bottled since i've started using gelatin, i've only kegged my beer and force carb it.

There are several threads on the topic floating around, but i'll admit i don't know if gelatin pulls yeast out of the beer. I want to say that it really only binds itself to the proteins and not the yeast, but don't quote me on it.

Couple things I've done that help a lot. If you're using an Ale Pail for your primary you can pick up paint strainers at Lowe's that have elastic that fits around the top of the bucket. Then just pull the strainer up and ta-da, lots of crud that doesn't get into the primary. Pouring aggressively into the bucket and the act of pulling the strainer up help for aeration too. I actually primary in a carboy but I pour into my ale pail first for the strainer and also to top off to 5 gallons.

I also use gelatin in my secondary and haven't had any trouble with my bottles carbonating.