Filtering the cold break?

Hey guys,

A friend of mine and I have gotten addicted to brewing recently, but we keep having a problem that we can't seem to work around: fully filtering the cold break. We've tried using a simple screen strainer and a funnel strainer but have had mixed results. The screen strainer was quick, but definitely didn't remove all of the cold break. The funnel was more efficient at removing it all, but took absolutely forever.

What do you all use? Is there a better way?

You don't have to filter out the cold break. Many people pour everything right into the fermenter once cooled. The break material will drop out to the bottom by the end of the fermentation. That said, if you want to leave it behind you can use some Irish Moss at the end of the boil to clump it up and siphon from your kettle to the primary. Using this method you can leave behind the good majority of it.

Don't worry about a little break material in the fermenter unless you are making a lager or something that absolutely calls for less break. For years I used a collander ( I make mostly ales) like you would use when making tomatoe juice and it has pretty big holes. It more or less just filtered out the hops (I use home grown whole leaf exclusively) and then when enough hops had built up it would start filtering out more break. If you don't leave the beer on the trub too long (more than 3 weeks) it should not cause any issues. If you are using a secondary fermenter....all the more reason not to worry. If you absolutely feel like you have to.....you can always get a big nylon paint strainer bag from hardware store or a nylon hop bag from local HBS and use that.

Hope this helps.....Cheers

False bottom and ball valve on your kettle. Leave 1 - 2 quarts behind. Problem, not that there is one, solved.

Neovox brings up a good point I hadn't thought of......you can do a whirlpool.....after cooling the wort...get the wort stirring good and then leave it sit for a few minutes. Then siphon off from the sides of the pot and most of the hops/break material will remain in the center of the pot in a cone shape and get left behind when siphoning.

That's good to know. We used Irish Moss in the last batch and that seemed to do a better job at clearing up the beer.

Do you know of any other techniques to help with beer clarity?

leotrace said:

Do you know of any other techniques to help with beer clarity?

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Time and cold crashing.

It takes hours at freezing temperatures to get all of the cold break to form, let alone remove it. Look into settling tanks or floating to see commercial literature on the subject.

The small part of the cold break that chilling to ale pitching temp will form in the kettle is not worth trying to separate. Either get it all like a German lager brewery or don't worry about it (I say don't worry about it).

Hot break, different story.

remilard said:

Hot break, different story.

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What would you recommend for filtering the hot break?

leotrace said:

What would you recommend for filtering the hot break?

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Generally the same thing you do to separate hops should separate hot break. For whole hops this is typically a hopback or false bottom, the hops create a filter bed. For pellet hops this is typically a whirlpool.

leotrace said:

That's good to know. We used Irish Moss in the last batch and that seemed to do a better job at clearing up the beer.

Do you know of any other techniques to help with beer clarity?

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Along with the Irish moss, I cold crash my fermenter when it's done and add gelatin to the keg before I rack. If you're careful with the autosiphon, you'll transfer a minimum amount of sediment. 24 to 48 hrs later I have crystal clear beer. I'm looking into isinglass, however. The gelatin does a great job at fining the beer, but I've heard that the sediment that's left with isinglass does a better job of staying put if you have to move a keg around.

...since this is somewhat on topic: What about for those of us who don't keg (and cold crashing thus isn't an option), esp. if we're dry hopping. My latest dry-hopped IPA is hazier than an unfilter wheat...

There's still plenty of yeast in suspension after a cold crash, so I don't see why it wouldn't be an option if you're bottling. And I'm not sure what dry hopping has to do with it either. I would just crash whatever vessel it's in immediately prior to packaging, be it primary or secondary, and see how it works for you.

Of course, I went to kegging after just a few batches, so maybe someone with more bottling experience can weigh in.

Cold crashing has worked out quite well for beer that we've bottled. We actually just cold crashed an IPA by accident (the power went out two days before we were going to bottle and the house temp dropped to 38 degrees) and that cleared our once-hazy IPA up quite well. I'd imagine it would work the same for yours, so feel free to try it!

I always cold crash before bottling. I've never had an issue and my beers came out crystal clear (at least the ones that were supposed to).

I think the problem with cold crashing for those not kegging is that many of us have no way to do it. We do not have a way to chill the fermenter. I'm pretty sure that if I took all of the milk and food and shelves out of our kitchen fridge my wife would have me committed.

foscojo said:

I think the problem with cold crashing for those not kegging is that many of us have no way to do it. We do not have a way to chill the fermenter. I'm pretty sure that if I took all of the milk and food and shelves out of our kitchen fridge my wife would have me committed.

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Exactly - I bottle, only as well. Though here in Minneapolis the temps are starting to drop at night so the batch I currently have in my fermenter may go out on the cement balcony of my condo overnight. Sometimes I wish I had a spare fridge though.

foscojo said:

I think the problem with cold crashing for those not kegging is that many of us have no way to do it. We do not have a way to chill the fermenter. I'm pretty sure that if I took all of the milk and food and shelves out of our kitchen fridge my wife would have me committed.

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Cold crashing has nothing to do with kegging, though. I don't want to put my fermenter in my keg fridge, there are kegs in there!

It has to do with how you are managing temperature control for your fermentation. If you have the ability to drop temp enough to make cool fermented lagers, you generally can drop it more to cold crash. I used to ferment in my cool basement with the fermenter in one of those giant rope handle tubs filled with water to dissipate the fermentation heat. I probably could have added a bunch of frozen water bottles to it to crash it.

I would be concerned about O2 suckback during the crash if I did not have a way to mitigate it with positive CO2 pressure or one of those mylar ballons filled with fermentation gas, but plenty of people enjoy their beer without those measures.

marc1 said:

Cold crashing has nothing to do with kegging, though. I don't want to put my fermenter in my keg fridge, there are kegs in there!

It has to do with how you are managing temperature control for your fermentation. If you have the ability to drop temp enough to make cool fermented lagers, you generally can drop it more to cold crash. I used to ferment in my cool basement with the fermenter in one of those giant rope handle tubs filled with water to dissipate the fermentation heat. I probably could have added a bunch of frozen water bottles to it to crash it.

I would be concerned about O2 suckback during the crash if I did not have a way to mitigate it with positive CO2 pressure or one of those mylar ballons filled with fermentation gas, but plenty of people enjoy their beer without those measures.

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Well, personally, I don't have any temperature control. I just put the bucket in my office closet. I cannot drop the temperature at all. I can only do what I can at room temperature.

That leaves me with filtering to improve clarity. I've tried various ways with middling results and added hassle. So I'm trying to at least cut some of the hassle.

foscojo said:

Well, personally, I don't have any temperature control. I just put the bucket in my office closet. I cannot drop the temperature at all. I can only do what I can at room temperature.

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I use this insulated bag for fermenters with bottles of ice inside. I usually like to to keep it between 62-65 degrees -- though with an extra couple of bottles I can drop it into the 50s. I usually freeze 1/2 gallon juice bottles of water and use 2-4 at a time and switch out every 18-24 hours, depending on how cold I want it .