Wort Chiller Strainer - I Admit It. I Stole This Great Idea.

The pics below demonstrate how effective a paint strainer can be in filtering out cold break trub and other unwanted stuff when transferring from the boil pot to the primary.

The first pick is my first AG...a Kolsch...siphoned directly to the fermenter using a racking cane.



The second pic is my contraption (5 gallon paint strainer from Lowes) to prevent some of the break from getting into the primary. I discovered this method on this forum somewhere...thanks.


The third and fourth pics are the results of using the filter. The new Kolsch is the one on the left.


It's the exact same recipe and process as my first Kolsch, but you can see the fermenter is considerably cleaner.

Once I got down to the brown muck in the bottom of the pot, I used the ole colandar with a paper towel to slow filter the rest of the wort into a pot and pitched it into the fermenter later.

I know this is old hat for the more seasoned brewers, but given the number of posts regarding "that yellow junk in my fermenter", I thought I'd share:

I use a variation of that method and it is quick and works great.

I'm slightly confused: why is the wort chiller inside the bag?

That actually gives me an idea: if you put the wort chiller inside the bag like that, and added it to the pot with, say, 20 minutes left in the boil--then you could chuck all of the flavor and aroma hops into the bag as well, and lift the whole works out after chilling.

My biggest concern would be that the bag would scortch on the bottom of the pan, though.

Was your chiller inside the bag like that the whole time it was in the pot? And the bag didn't burn?

cweston said:

I'm slightly confused: why is the wort chiller inside the bag?

That actually gives me an idea: if you put the wort chiller inside the bag like that, and added it to the pot with, say, 20 minutes left in the boil--then you could chuck all of the flavor and aroma hops into the bag as well, and lift the whole works out after chilling.

My biggest concern would be that the bag would scortch on the bottom of the pan, though.

Was your chiller inside the bag like that the whole time it was in the pot? And the bag didn't burn?

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This was after the wort had chilled and I needed to siphon into the fermenter.

I do a free boil (no hop bags). When the wort has chilled, remove the chiller, clamp this strainer on the outside. After letting the wort sit for about 15 minutes (covered) to settle, gently submerge this into the wort and inside the chiller, you'll have a clear pool of wort from which to siphon.

I have a big funnel which fits in the top of my carboy which has a nylon mesh screen in the bottom. I set a colander over that and pour from the kettle through the colander which goes through the mesh. Only problem is I still have to sometimes massage the wort through the mesh screen with a spoon.

I'm assuming this is a common problem but I would like to avoid it.

I cool the wort and siphon off the clear part. Then dump the last gallon or so into a sanitized plastic pail lined with the strainer.

bgdfw said:

I have a big funnel which fits in the top of my carboy which has a nylon mesh screen in the bottom. I set a colander over that and pour from the kettle through the colander which goes through the mesh. Only problem is I still have to sometimes massage the wort through the mesh screen with a spoon.

I'm assuming this is a common problem but I would like to avoid it.

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That was how I used to do it. Seemed the bigger the beer, the more of a pain. And if you use a lot of hops...fo-get-about-it.

BierMuncher said:

I do a free boil (no hop bags). When the wort has chilled, remove the chiller, clamp this strainer on the outside. After letting the wort sit for about 15 minutes (covered) to settle, gently submerge this into the wort and inside the chiller, you'll have a clear pool of wort from which to siphon.

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Do you do anything special to protect against infection? If you remove the chiller for 15 minutes, then add a bag to it, do you boil everything in a different pot while the wort is settling? Just curious.

FlyGuy said:

Do you do anything special to protect against infection? If you remove the chiller for 15 minutes, then add a bag to it, do you boil everything in a different pot while the wort is settling? Just curious.

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I lift the wort chiller out of the hot kettle and drop it into one of my empty sanitized fermenter buckets and lay the lid over. The nylon paint strainer is taken right out of a sink full of sanitized solution, wrung dry and placed over the chiller...then dunked.

Good idea!

Dumb question: how will having all the gunk in your fermenter effect the beer? (in my 2 AG batches, I've just poored the whole boil into my fermenter... )

pax,
Scott

Well..I just spent a pretty penny on a weldless fitting/ball valve and bazooka tube...this would have been nice to try beforehand.

you know you should become a spokesman for paint strainers, I swear



Dan

You semi-apologize for "stealing" someone else's idea... but thanks!!

I probably would have never seen this method if it wasn't for you reposting it. I'm sure a lot of good information gets lost when it's not reposted.

Been thinkning of using a 5 micron (house) cartridge filter but not sure if it handle the hot wort. Guess I could use it cold side. Actually, I think I will try that next batch.

Have been toying with the idea of filtering the mash for quite some time. Hmm.. need to find a filter that doesn't have the "end caps" hotsticked on though.

I recently found that if you heat the runnings in the brewpot to about 170 or 180 F the proteins coagulate. This is perfect for a final sparge/filtration back thru the grainbed, and it removes the bulk of hot break before the boil. I'm a n00b to the AG thing, but it seemed to produce great results for me so far.

Willsellout said:

Well..I just spent a pretty penny on a weldless fitting/ball valve and bazooka tube...this would have been nice to try beforehand.

you know you should become a spokesman for paint strainers, I swear



Dan

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LOL. The way we squeeze every last cent out of our equipment? I'm pretty sure they would go broke if brewers were their only customers. I bought 2 1-gallon and 2 5-gallon strainers back in January and still have one of each in the package. These things are indestructable and clean up easily.

WhatsOnTap said:

I recently found that if you heat the runnings in the brewpot to about 170 or 180 F the proteins coagulate. This is perfect for a final sparge/filtration back thru the grainbed, and it removes the bulk of hot break before the boil. I'm a n00b to the AG thing, but it seemed to produce great results for me so far.

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That's actually a really great idea...are there any downsides?


Dan

Willsellout said:

That's actually a really great idea...are there any downsides?


Dan

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Not that I've found. One thing I needed to adjust was to make sure the bag was drawn up nice and taught. This made sure that the bottom of the bag, at the center, didn't float up as if was submerged.

Once I remove the chiller and bag, I pour the remainder of the "sludge" into a colandar lined with two paper towels over a pot...cover and let it sit to strain out. Sometimes that can go overnight, but it yields some mighty hoppy liquid, sometimes 2 to 3 cups.

WhatsOnTap said:

I recently found that if you heat the runnings in the brewpot to about 170 or 180 F the proteins coagulate. This is perfect for a final sparge/filtration back thru the grainbed, and it removes the bulk of hot break before the boil. I'm a n00b to the AG thing, but it seemed to produce great results for me so far.

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That's what mash out decoction is for.

I've always, always, always, without exception, strained my wort. I used to pour from the kettle into a funnel/strainer which sat in the neck of the primary carboy. These days, I simply sanitize my SS false-bottomed MLT, then pour the wort into it at flameout. The chiller is submersed until it's close to pitching temps. The false bottom acts as a sort of hop-back to filter the hops out. I then position my carboy and funnel/strainer directly beneath the spigot on the MLT, and proceed to transfer that way, emptying the strainer as required.

scohop said:

Good idea!

Dumb question: how will having all the gunk in your fermenter effect the beer? (in my 2 AG batches, I've just poored the whole boil into my fermenter... )

pax,
Scott

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It won't! It all sediments out anyway, this is for the beer voyeurers who like to watch the ferment
Lots of people use Counter flow chiller that dump all the cold break into the wort and they don't have any problems in fact anecdotal evidence would suggest that it may even be benefical for the yeasties.

Lately I've been skimming off the hot break, but I completely ignore the cold break. I'm sure my plate chiller hates me for it lol, but with conicals it sediments out easily. A few days before I plan on draining the conical fermenter, I will let out some sludge from the bottom valve to be safe (and yes most of the time I remember to open my pressure release first so I don't suck in dirty cheap vodka from my airtrap heh).

scohop said:

how will having all the gunk in your fermenter effect the beer?
Scott

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It won't - for ales. Cold-break is good for yeast, it's nice to have all that stuff out of there so you don't lose as much when you transfer the beer later, however. The only time you really don't want the break in there is when your doing a super-clean lager.

It's nice to have that stuff out of there if you're harvesting yeast as well. Leaving it in won't hurt the beer at all though.

Is the screen on a bazooka tube fine enough to filter out the cold break? I recently bought this and was thinking that should be sufficient for this also.

Cheyco Libre said:

It's nice to have that stuff out of there if you're harvesting yeast as well. Leaving it in won't hurt the beer at all though.

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That's my main motivation.

I agree. No effect on the taste and the "chunks" do give a cooler visual of fermentation progress (assuming you're using a glass carboy).

I started harvesting yeast to save money however and the results are cleaner.

Man, I've NEVER had as much break material as you had in your first picture. I am on my fifth AG batch...am I missing something? The most I've had fit into a smallerish collendar, and I thought that was a lot.

Just a quick thought.... Could this strainer be used as a grain bag.... sort of a cheap way to get into partial mashing and all grain? would this hold enough grain in it?

I've had excellent results with copper "Chore Boy" scrubbers on the end of the racking cane, after chilling and allowing the wort to settle for 15 mins or so, of course.

The copper scrubbers sanitize easily, and even clean easily (just boil them, and the hops/break material floats right out).

As I've begun my AG research I came across this topic of using paint strainers to filter wort. Someone else posted this question a few topics up and it hasn't been answered. Could a paint strainer also be used as a giant grain bag for doing AG brewing? Could this eleminate the need for a bottom manifold? Just wondering.

BierMuncher, thanks so much for (re)sharing this great idea! I just brewed my 2nd batch last night (Blind Pig clone) and wanted to avoid all the hops (and thick sludge) in the primary that I got with the 1st batch. The bag worked great to filter hops debris (100% pellet hops in this recipe). I also stuck a stainless steel scrubbie onto the end of the racking cane--though I didn't cinch it with a zip tie as I was planning to do, it seemed to stay on--which was probably overkill.

Makes me wonder why I spent the extra money to get the kettle with the ball valve?!? Guess it'd be useful for AG brewing in the future.

One last note: I had some difficulty pulling a siphon, as I don't have a siphon starter. Several attempts to pull one with breath pressure failed (suck, taste/contaminate, re-sanitize, repeat). Finally it dawned on me that the orange vinyl carboy hood would be handy for this, and sure enough it was. A nice slow but steady siphon with lots and lots of aeration taking place. After siphoning I put the remaining hop-infused sludge through a layer of coffee filters in a colander, and added the filtered broth to the primary this morning. Wonderful smelling stuff, that! And I got a full 5-gallon batch this time unlike a tad less than 4 gallons for the first batch, due to filtering issues and hops sponges.

delboy said:

It won't! It all sediments out anyway, this is for the beer voyeurers who like to watch the ferment
Lots of people use Counter flow chiller that dump all the cold break into the wort and they don't have any problems in fact anecdotal evidence would suggest that it may even be benefical for the yeasties.

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Plus, you miss out on the point in time the fermentation gets so active that it picks the trub/cold break up off the bottom of the carboy and tosses it around like a rag doll. That's when I know primary fermentation is a success.

syankey said:

As I've begun my AG research I came across this topic of using paint strainers to filter wort. Someone else posted this question a few topics up and it hasn't been answered. Could a paint strainer also be used as a giant grain bag for doing AG brewing? Could this eleminate the need for a bottom manifold? Just wondering.

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Yup, there's tons of stuff about that. Just do a search for paint strainer bags. I'm going to be using one to do an almost all grain batch pretty soon here, with the BIAB method. Look that up too

I'm guilty of stealing this idea from BierMuncher about a year ago!

I've gotten fairly good results with my chiller-strainer as well, although I do encounter some batch to batch efficiency variation, by which I mean wort remaining after the siphoning. Maybe its the amount of hop pellets from one batch to another, or maybe the cone that is formed after whirlpooling is not always the same.

BierMuncher- are you whirlpooling before the chiller-strainer?

I guess I need to start straining the remaining "sludge" to maximize my gravity points!

Thanks again, BierMuncher!

Why do you fear the trub?? All the break protein and yeast form sediment at the bottom of the fermenter and you can siphon clear beer off the top. Interesting ideas but do they really make better beer?

stevehaun said:

Why do you fear the trub?? All the break protein and yeast form sediment at the bottom of the fermenter and you can siphon clear beer off the top. Interesting ideas but do they really make better beer?

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Yes................

Could the same thing be accomplished by using a smaller 4"x6" nylon hop bag clamped or zip tied to the racking cane or would there simply be too much hot break volume for a smaller bag to handle? It seems like using a smaller bag clamped or zip tied around the racking cane would be a lot easier to get into the BK than fitting a paint strainer bag around my IC and dropping them both in. I have been thinking of trying this when I transfer from primary to secondary and figured the same process might work for the transfer from BK to primary.

I know I'll be accused of "Threadus Resurrectus" for reviving this since it is almost two years old but that is what happens when you use the search function and have a question

Hey BierMuncher,

Are you speaking from anecdotal experience? Or is there actual scientific proof out there to support that straining the wort will make a better beer?

Sounds like other posters believe straining it could potentially make the beer not as good as unstrained.

Just curious, becuase I get wicked cold breaks, and my fermenter looks much more cloudy than yours did, but of course it settles out w/in 12 hours after pitching.

I like to leave the cold break in the fermenter.

see http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.2/barchet.html

matpat said:

Could the same thing be accomplished by using a smaller 4"x6" nylon hop bag clamped or zip tied to the racking cane or would there simply be too much hot break volume for a smaller bag to handle?:

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I thought of this my last brew session and it went splendid. Probably the clearest and easiest method that I've done so far. I just sanitize the hop bag by putting it into the wort during the last few minutes of the boil. Then when I'm ready to transfer, just slid my racking cane into the bag and tied it off. The brew only had 1.5oz of hops, so I'm not sure how it would perform with IPAs.

matpat said:

Could the same thing be accomplished by using a smaller 4"x6" nylon hop bag clamped or zip tied to the racking cane or would there simply be too much hot break volume for a smaller bag to handle? It seems like using a smaller bag clamped or zip tied around the racking cane would be a lot easier to get into the BK than fitting a paint strainer bag around my IC and dropping them both in. I have been thinking of trying this when I transfer from primary to secondary and figured the same process might work for the transfer from BK to primary.

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This is what I have always done, but when the wort level in the kettle gets low the gunk gets pretty thick and you have to keep moving the cane around inside the hops bag to free up the flow. I have been wanting to make a tent out of copper or SS wire to attach to the end of my auto siphon to keep the flow going, but this looks like a better option to me. I personally hate having trub at the bottom of my fermenter and do everything I can to minimize. That's used up space that could be a couple extra beers instead Using this method I get under 2 inches of trub and yeast on the bottom of a 6 gallon carboy by the end of my brews. I will definitely try this method on my next brew since I have a couple paint bags that I used to use for partial mashes.

I have a false bottom in my boil kettle and before i place it in the kettle I put a stainless scrubbie in the center so the dip tube sits in the middle of the scrubbie and false bottom on top. Filters everything except cold break. I do this in my mash tun also and it filters out every little piece of grain that may get through.