Whirlpool - The big How-To

[/QUOTE]Here is a picture of my whirlpool -- I just use elbows for both and have no issues getting a large trub cone even with and IC. You don't really need a "vortex" like on a stir plate, mine just moves in a very small clockwise movement.[/QUOTE]


Ok that's a little reassuring then. I'm picking up another elbow for my "dip tube" today, so I will try it again. Thanks!

If it helps, my system was designed by Morebeer and the stainless elbows are what they installed. I have one high for a pump return and one low attached to the drain valve. I get a nice even swirl but no vortex and a nice cone.

I just run the pump while chilling (immersion chiller) to promote quicker heat exchange. I run it for another 2-3 min after pulling the chiller just to get everything moving real well. Then I put the lid on to keep dust and bugs out and let it spin down for about 20 min

I haven't had a whole lot of luck whirpooling. I have a blichmann boilermaker and a Jamil style IWC with recirculation. I rack off the top and generally just discard the last 1 to 1.5 gallons. I wait about 15 minutes; maybe I'll try 30 next time and see what happens.

bumstigedy said:

I haven't had a whole lot of luck whirpooling. I have a blichmann boilermaker and a Jamil style IWC with recirculation. I rack off the top and generally just discard the last 1 to 1.5 gallons. I wait about 15 minutes; maybe I'll try 30 next time and see what happens.

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That's quite a bit of waste for a batch of beer though. At that level of discard, I think I'd just dump the whole thing in. There's plenty of debate on whether the hop/break material has an effect on the final product, but if you ferment out (usually 2 weeks) then use a secondary you would be more than fine. Not to mention to extra ingredients your likely buying to make up for the loss.

Care to put a picture up for a better look at it? Also look at where you return is....meaning it should be close to the outer portion of the kettle to get the best effect.

I'll post a picture after my next brew. I actually tried dumping everything in for several batches but I started getting some comments on my scorecards about astringency and herbal/grassy/musty hop flavors. I've went back to this method to see if he hop trub and break material is the cause.

bumstigedy said:

I haven't had a whole lot of luck whirpooling. I have a blichmann boilermaker and a Jamil style IWC with recirculation. I rack off the top and generally just discard the last 1 to 1.5 gallons. I wait about 15 minutes; maybe I'll try 30 next time and see what happens.

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I'm in a similar situation with a morebeer recirculating IC. I pump from the bottom of the kettle up to the recirculation arm. After using it for the first time this weekend, it chilled great, but didn't give me the best trub pile. It was making a decent circular motion in the kettle, no where close to a vortex though. I think a majority of the trub material was in the center, but not settled.

I ended up removing the chiller, stirring and letting it settle before racking.

I'm thinking of whirlpooling next time then leaving the chiller in and letting it settle after chilling for 20 minutes without recirculating, then racking from the bottom valve on the kettle.

Should I try that or draining while still recirculating?

solavirtus said:

I'm in a similar situation with a morebeer recirculating IC. I pump from the bottom of the kettle up to the recirculation arm. After using it for the first time this weekend, it chilled great, but didn't give me the best trub pile. It was making a decent circular motion in the kettle, no where close to a vortex though. I think a majority of the trub material was in the center, but not settled.

I ended up removing the chiller, stirring and letting it settle before racking.

I'm thinking of whirlpooling next time then leaving the chiller in and letting it settle after chilling for 20 minutes without recirculating, then racking from the bottom valve on the kettle.

Should I try that or draining while still recirculating?

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What do you use to rack? Racking cane or a dip tube? I'm just getting into the whole whirlpool thing, but I've seen posts and pictures of people just leaving the chiller in there and racking the wort off. That way whatever cone you might have created remains undisturbed.

solavirtus said:

I'm in a similar situation with a morebeer recirculating IC. I pump from the bottom of the kettle up to the recirculation arm. After using it for the first time this weekend, it chilled great, but didn't give me the best trub pile. It was making a decent circular motion in the kettle, no where close to a vortex though. I think a majority of the trub material was in the center, but not settled.

I ended up removing the chiller, stirring and letting it settle before racking.

I'm thinking of whirlpooling next time then leaving the chiller in and letting it settle after chilling for 20 minutes without recirculating, then racking from the bottom valve on the kettle.

Should I try that or draining while still recirculating?

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If you have the same Morebeer setup I do, I wouldn't drain while still recirculating. I have the whirlpool chiller. But my Morebeer BK also has 2 ports for whirl pooling. On my last bath, I skipped the recirc arm on the chiller and just used it as a strait chiller. I used the ports on the BK for my whirlpool.

Doing this allowed me to remove the chiller when I reached my temp. I continued to let the pump run for a few min after removing my chiller. Then I shut off the pump and covered my kettle. By the time I'd sanitized my fermenters and put away and gear I was done with, the whirlpool had spun down (about 20 min).

I got a little cold break into the fermenters. But the bulk of my hops and break were in a cone in the center of the BK

Thanks winvarin. I'll give something like that a try on the next batch. I only have the single port on my kettle, so I may just try without removing the chiller or removing it and just running the return hose back into the kettle securing it to the rim somehow.

I am conducting another test this evening to test for leaks in valves and how well the 2 valve system will whirlpool. I have a 2 valve set up on my brew kettle just like winvarin w/o the chiller. I'll try and post some pictures of it in progress to see how well things work.

For some reason I can never get the cone at the bottom. I will remove everything from the kettle and get it spinning as fast as possible with the spoon then let it sit (with nothing in the kettle except the wort) for 30 min and I still never get a cone. I use a hop bag while boiling so I dont have anything but hot and cold break in there at the end, and I get the wort down to mid 60s in about 20 minutes so I think I am getting a sufficient cold break. No idea why I can never get the cone :/ I am thinking I just dont have enough sediment in there to actually for a cone and the cold and hot break by itself isnt dense enough to just clump together in the bottom center. Thoughts?

solavirtus said:

Thanks winvarin. I'll give something like that a try on the next batch. I only have the single port on my kettle, so I may just try without removing the chiller or removing it and just running the return hose back into the kettle securing it to the rim somehow.

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I've heard JZ say on his podcast that he can get a cone with that chiller in place. I mainly took it out because I had both options by having 2 ports. I'd be willing to give it another shot with the chiller still in place.

jglazer said:

For some reason I can never get the cone at the bottom. I will remove everything from the kettle and get it spinning as fast as possible with the spoon then let it sit (with nothing in the kettle except the wort) for 30 min and I still never get a cone. I use a hop bag while boiling so I dont have anything but hot and cold break in there at the end, and I get the wort down to mid 60s in about 20 minutes so I think I am getting a sufficient cold break. No idea why I can never get the cone :/ I am thinking I just dont have enough sediment in there to actually for a cone and the cold and hot break by itself isnt dense enough to just clump together in the bottom center. Thoughts?

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I think leaving the hops free floating is the key to getting a cone. The hops form the solid cone and some of the break matter clings to it. Even with my cone, I still have some cold break at the bottom of the kettle

I gave up on whirlpooling and just use a hop taco. Much easier

winvarin said:

I think leaving the hops free floating is the key to getting a cone. The hops form the solid cone and some of the break matter clings to it. Even with my cone, I still have some cold break at the bottom of the kettle

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Interesting concept. I'll have to try this on my next brew and see if it changes things for me. I usually use hop bags and also can't seem to get a good cone.

For what it's worth, I can usually get a decent cone but I'm using 6+ oz hops in the boil of many of my 5 gallon batches so I still end up with a nice pile of hops and break going in the fermenter using the valve on the bottom of my kettle. Sanitizing/cleaning a siphon and extra hose on brew day is the last thing I feel like doing when there is so much other stuff to clean up.

In the end, I've decided the hops and sludge really doesn't seem to hurt the final product. My first brews I used a hop bag, then on to a paint strainer bag, then on to a hop spider. Now I just toss everything right in the boil, whirlpool with the immersion chiller and open the valve up, tipping the kettle towards the end. A bunch ends up in the fermenter, but it all settles out during a 3 week primary. My IPAs usually end up with a half gallon of gunk and yeast at the bottom of the fermenter, but the positives are I'm not wasting any wort, I am getting a crystal clear beer after a couple weeks in the keg, I don't have a paint strainer bag to clean and I know I'm getting 100% hop utilization. I can't really think of any negatives other than it's a little more difficult to harvest yeast. Anyone else practice this?

So here is my yesterday experience. It may not be entirely on-topic, but it leads to a discussion about whirlpool that I had with my friend, so please bother with me.

I brewed a SMaSH experiment using Target hops and a peat smoked malt from a certain Czech malting company, to see how much smoke intensity and what smoke character I would get.
Pre-boil the wort was pretty clear, actually I think my clearest yet (I am currently focusing on getting the lautering process done as good as possible). Unfortunately I did not take any pictures, but you can believe me, it was pretty clear.
I moved it to my boil kettle, made a normal boil, adding only hops. After the boil I chilled the wort pretty fast (some 15 minutes to 20-30°C).
Next I whirlpooled and everything went fine, hops formed a nice cone some 15 mins later.
BUT here is the problem - at some point during the boil the wort got pretty cloudy and it never cleared again.

Later that day I sat in a pub with my friend, who studies brewing in school and described to him my process.

He was quite surprised, that I whirlpool AFTER chilling, since all the breweries whirlpool BEFORE chilling and pointed that out to me as an obvious mistake.

I can pretty much understand, why anyone using a plate chiller (all commercial breweries AFAIK) would want to separate the wort from hops trub and hot break before sending it to the chiller.

But I did not get the reason why it would matter for anyone on a homebrew scale, who uses immersion chiller. Our aim, if I understand it correctly, is to ideally remove all the trub, consisting hops material, hot break, AND cold break if it is possible (and it indeed is, by chilling BEFORE whirlpooling).

He still argued his point, that it is better to whirlpool at near boiling temperatures and THEN chill, because of air exposure at cool temperatures the other way around.

I went through this thread and seen some advantages to both pre-chill and post-chill whirlpooling. As usual, my search for an answer to single question did not bring forth a definite answer, only more confusion with addition of another solution into the mix - whirlpool WHILE chilling, which seems to combine the best of both.

So I call out to the great minds of brewing on this forum to help me getting this thing straight.
To whirlpool or not to whirlpool, that is not the question But do it before, after, or while chilling? What are the proven (ideally)pros and cons to each?

Jogurt said:

So here is my yesterday experience ... brewed a SMaSH experiment using Target hops and a peat smoked malt from a certain Czech malting company, to see how much smoke intensity and what smoke character I would get ...

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Heck, I didn't even think peat had any diastatic power?

A thing I learned pretty fast is that the smoke intensity will be pretty low.
1. tasting raw
2. observing the dust aroma while milling
3. aroma and taste of the wort pre-boil. It was actually lower in intensity than my previous beer with 81% weyermann smoked malt (they use birch if I am not mistaken EDIT:they use beech actually)
Also I was forced to leave the milled grain sit for some 40hrs. But we are a bit off-topic

But since you speak about diastatic power - I did no research in this, but I believe there is no reason why smoking over peat would affect malt's diastatic power in any way. That would give the brewers in history a bit of a hard time (well they might not use peat, but I do not see why that should matter either)

Jogurt said:

But since you speak about diastatic power - I did no research in this, but...

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Diastatic Power 0.0%


but it could depend on the malster?

JustLooking said:

but it could depend on the malster?

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Definitely. Otherwise I invented some new kind of fermentation since it had a healthy krausen this morning

Still I can not imagine how smoking over cold smoke could affect diastatic power, regardless of the smoking agent. I guess it depends on the temperature. Maybe peat smoke is traditionally used hot, but apparently nobody told the maltsters making what I used.

I've been trying to whirlpool now for the last few batches. I've switched to pellet hops, removed the false bottom in my BK, tried to use a torpedo screen on the outlet but it clogged up, installed a whirlpool fitting and valve, and now have the pickup tube near the edge and within a quarter inch of the bottom of the kettle (See picture). I'm using an immersion chiller

My plan to whirlpool were these steps.

1) Start water flow to the IC.
2) Circulate hot wort from kettle outlet through the whirlpool fitting until wort is to pitching temp.
3) Remove IC and continue to circulate another minute or two.
4) Stop circulation and cover for 20-30 minutes.
5) Pump into the fermenter from the kettle outlet.

Three questions - How will the chugger pump handle hop and trub debris? How do you clean debris out of the chugger pump? Are there any glaring problems with the steps I'll be taking or the equipment I'll be using?

atoughram said:

I've been trying to whirlpool now for the last few batches. I've switched to pellet hops, removed the false bottom in my BK, tried to use a torpedo screen on the outlet but it clogged up, installed a whirlpool fitting and valve, and now have the pickup tube near the edge and within a quarter inch of the bottom of the kettle (See picture). I'm using an immersion chiller

My plan to whirlpool were these steps.

1) Start water flow to the IC.
2) Circulate hot wort from kettle outlet through the whirlpool fitting until wort is to pitching temp.
3) Remove IC and continue to circulate another minute or two.
4) Stop circulation and cover for 20-30 minutes.
5) Pump into the fermenter from the kettle outlet.

Three questions - How will the chugger pump handle hop and trub debris? How do you clean debris out of the chugger pump? Are there any glaring problems with the steps I'll be taking or the equipment I'll be using?

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I use those exact same steps, except my system has a March pump. The march seems to have no issue with debris. As for cleaning, I run a gallon or so of hot PBW through the pump while I am cleaning up the rest of my gear. I recirculate for a couple minutes to loosen everything up then just pump the solution into a bucket.

For good measure, I also empty the sanitizer in my fermenter back into a bucket. The last thing I do on brew day is to run that bucket of sanitizer through my pump. Probably overkill but since I have it already mixed up, I figure why not?

Every few brews I open the head on my pump. I've never seen anything other than clean and debris free when I do.

winvarin said:

Every few brews I open the head on my pump. I've never seen anything other than clean and debris free when I do.

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Perfect - I thought I was doing it correctly but wasn't sure. I've got a Little Giant and a Chugger pump - the head on the little giant is easy to clean, I tear it down every brew and rinse it and spray star-san on it before reassembly. So far I've only used the Chugger Pump for clear water.

What you imagine that will happen If I do a Whirlpool in a vassel with inclined bottom? May trub concentrate to de lower side?

Hey Kaiser, the post is quite old but still relevant. I couldn't see any of the pics ... possibly my problem only? Or have they been removed from the forum on account of the age of the post??

The pics show up on the wiki.

Kaiser said:

This has also been published on the Wiki: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Whirlpooling

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