Transferring Wort

Whats up guys,

I am just starting and purchased my first brewing kit the other day, so this will probably be a total rookie question but I definitely appreciate some help.During my first brew, I finished with the wort and was in the process of transferring from the pot to my carboy. The funnel that was in the Kit had a strainer which can be removed, so when i was pouring into the carboy the strainer caught a bunch of the brew goodness that was in the wort. I am not sure if I needed to strain out all of that stuff or just dump the entire pot of wort into the carboy.

Basically does the wort need to be strained while dumping into carboy or does the entire wort go straight into carboy.

Thanks guys.

The short answer is no you don't have to strain the wort.

There are entrenched opinions on both sides but I and many others just dump it all in.

Like the others said, some say it tastes better if you get rid of it, some say just the opposite. And lots say that they can't tell the difference.

Try it both ways and see which one you prefer.

Check this out.

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/

And just in time, he put up Part 2 of the xBeeriment

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/impact-kettle-trub-part-2-xbmt-results-521396/#post6784569

No wrong way, unless you jump in there with it.

Actually...then you'll probably just have a sour. Yup, no wrong way.

I used to dump my wort from the kettle into the carboy using a funnel and strainer until I started doing full boils. At that point the pot was too heavy and full of liquid for me to feel comfortable pouring from the kettle.

I started using my autosiphon to transfer the wort from the kettle to the carboy. This works really well because it gets almost all the liquid but leaves the trub and hob debris in the kettle.

My next kettle will have a port for a ball valve, making the transfer from kettle to carboy that much easier.

SnakeRidge said:

Check this out.

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/

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SnakeRidge said:

And just in time, he put up Part 2 of the xBeeriment

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/impact-kettle-trub-part-2-xbmt-results-521396/#post6784569

Click to expand...

Interesting read. I might try this experiment as well.

Thetonymartin said:

Interesting read. I might try this experiment as well.

Click to expand...

Since reading his first study, I've started dumping all the trub in except for the heaviest pint or so of sludge. While my studies are nowhere near as rigorous and are wholly anecdotal, I have not noticed a difference with my beers either way.

Dump it all in, strain it all out... Ive done it both ways and notice no negative effects that I (or anyone else that drinks my beer) can notice.

I strain usually for the simple fact that I harvest and wash most yeasts, so it has become an ingrained part of my process.
It makes it a little simpler to do this as there is less junk to separate from the yeast.

I minimize hop debris by using hop bags and a DIY hop spider.

Brew on brethren....

Dump it all in, the exbeeriments and numerous anectdotal evidence have me convinced that it's better for the yeast.

1977Brewer said:

Dump it all in, the exbeeriments and numerous anectdotal evidence have me convinced that it's better for the yeast.

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That new exbeeriment sure starts out with a premise that really doesn't state his true findings from the first trials - a 2:1 result in favor of no trub wrt flavor.

It is well known that the trub accelerates yeast activity.

This is a great question. I actually have been wondering the same, lately. However, I have always just dumped everything into the fermenting bucket.

Here's my thing on this. Logically, I can see why some might say to strain out all of the hops and "goodness". In "How To Brew" by John Palmer he briefly touches on the fact that the maillard effect with the hops and other sediment might actually cause bad tasting beer.

When you think about it, if you put any kind of organic material into most environments wouldn't it, over time, begin to rot or go bad? Hops, for example are part of a plant so shouldn't it rot? What do you guys think? Does it have a greater risk of causing bad taste due to potential rotting of the hops and other sediment? I could be grasping at straws and I'm a beginner as well when it comes to brewing.

I'd say at the very least by straining it you should produce a clearer beer.

--Dan

dn151864 said:

This is a great question. I actually have been wondering the same, lately. However, I have always just dumped everything into the fermenting bucket.

Here's my thing on this. Logically, I can see why some might say to strain out all of the hops and "goodness". In "How To Brew" by John Palmer he briefly touches on the fact that the maillard effect with the hops and other sediment might actually cause bad tasting beer.

When you think about it, if you put any kind of organic material into most environments wouldn't it, over time, begin to rot or go bad? Hops, for example are part of a plant so shouldn't it rot? What do you guys think? Does it have a greater risk of causing bad taste due to potential rotting of the hops and other sediment? I could be grasping at straws and I'm a beginner as well when it comes to brewing.

I'd say at the very least by straining it you should produce a clearer beer.

--Dan

Click to expand...

I don't think so. Rotting vegetation is a biological process that requires microorganisms to digest the organic material. The boil kills off almost all of the microorganisms and we as brewers add just the one that we want back (at least enough of yeast that anything else that floats in can't out compete or so is our goal). Also the hops have antibiotic properties that inhibit a wide range of microbiological growth.

It is a potential that if you are creating a hop bomb and let it sit on the sediment for a bit that it could extract a bunch of tannins. The beer could also get an off flavor from sitting on the yeast sediment for an extended period.

If you look at the xBmt that the Brulosopher has done, his beer came out just as clear if not more clear. The first xBmt he didn't use gelatin and made note of the beer with lots of trub was more clear than the one without trub.

Thanks lump42. I was just grasping at straws since I'm still learning this stuff. What you said seems to make a lot of sense.

--Dan

To add to the rotting vegetation analogy, When I recently dumped some trub out of a beer that was in primary fermentation for several weeks, It had a nice fresh hoppy smell to it and a creamy consistency of a roughly khaki coloration. within a matter of hours it started to darken in the way that exposed avocado might. And, by 12 hours it had turned black and attracted some big nasty looking flies.
I have a friend who remarked that some of his favorite foods/drinks are the result of "controlled spoilage" as a form of preservation. I think the key word is controlled, and withholding oxygen is a big part of that. I'm keeping the trub in my beer and then slowing down the fermentation with lower temperatures in my kegorfermerator. I have a lot of trub due my BIAB and corona mill process, but so far no off flavors that I can discern.

On my list of experiments is to try pitching some apple juice on a yeast cake to see if I can get some of the hops and malty flavors into my cider with a minimal effort, while "saving" the beer mixed in with the trub. I'd also like to see how many times I can pitch on top of a yeast cake (I'm picturing a carboy with five levels of trub halfway filling the thing) before I start to notice off flavors.

I have tried out my new copper immersion chiller and during the chilling time, a lot of sediment fell to the bottom of the boilpot. When I got down to pitching temperature, I poured it slowly into the fermentation bucket to promote aeration. I was able to leave the layer of sediment in the brewpot, it ended up in my compost pile out in the backyard. Over the course of the next several days, as my US-05 yeast did it's thing, I could still see some sediment accumulating in the bottom of the bucket. When I put in the dry hops, I'll get even more.
I figure the hops I put in during the boil and at flameout have served their purpose and aren't really necessary after chilling and transferring to the fermentor. The dry hops serve a new purpose.

MrFancyPlants said:

I have a lot of trub due my BIAB and corona mill process, but so far no off flavors that I can discern.

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What do you mean by BIAB?

Thanks!

dn151864 said:

What do you mean by BIAB?

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Brew in a bag... I don't use a mash tun and some particles are either getting through the bag, or it is just because I don't make any effort to filter out the hot or cold breaks on the the way to the fermentor.

jethro55 said:

That new exbeeriment sure starts out with a premise that really doesn't state his true findings from the first trials - a 2:1 result in favor of no trub wrt flavor.

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You really need to learn more about statistical significance and sample size. 4 out of 6 preferring one over the other has no significance, especially since taste is so subjective and biased by personal preferences. It's more important to read the tasting notes. None of the tasters noted any defects related to being fermented on the trub, but rather there were subtle differences. If your personal tastes run towards the perceptions of non-truby, then you should probably filter out the trub.

Brew on

MrFancyPlants said:

To add to the rotting vegetation analogy, When I recently dumped some trub out of a beer that was in primary fermentation for several weeks, It had a nice fresh hoppy smell to it and a creamy consistency of a roughly khaki coloration. within a matter of hours it started to darken in the way that exposed avocado might. And, by 12 hours it had turned black and attracted some big nasty looking flies.

Click to expand...

The reason the hops don't break down into a stinking pile in the bottom is because the yeast lack the enzymes to break down plant cell walls or utilize complex carbohydrates within the plant material. The initial darkening of the trub when exposed to air is oxidation (similar to avacados and apples, culinary tip: citric acid from lemons juice will inhibit this) and not really the decomposition. The flies are definitely a help with decomp. but the fact that trub is not in a closed environment and open to all the microbs of the world is what will make it a smelling pile. Flies raised in a sterile environment don't smell anything like a garbage pile.