Trub and loss!

Hi all,
So I moved to all grain and brewed a founders breakfast stout clone, a smash with cascade hops, and a red ale IPA. One thing seemingly obvious is there is a lot more trub loss with all grain, so I don't have my volumes correct. Ie: I just racked my red ale dry hopped tonight for the third time, to get the floating hops out. I will bottle this tomorrow, but I am down to like 3.5 gallons. I racked my breakfast stout once using a Cain and have about 4 gallons. The my smash racked and about 3.5 gal...

What shpuld I be doing with these volumes? Shpuld I mash out 7.5 gallons, boil down and ferment 6 gallons to rack it down to 4.5 to 5 gallons? I guess I expect a few cases 48 bottles per batch. I figure I will put the recipe in beer smith for 5 gallons, then ramp it up to 7.5, add the extra malt etc, then by the time it makes it through the primary, secondary, and to bottling I will have 5 gallons. Big question being... Are these 5 gallon recipes for 5 gallons but ends up 3.5 racking and trub or should we be using the 5 gallon recipe and sparge up to 7.5 gallons to end with 5? Whichever you do could seriously affect the recipe when you factor in trub, sediment, and volume loss.. Thoughts or suggestions are greatly welcomed!

for 5 gal batch I shoot for 5.5 gal in the fermenter that way I end up with 5 gal after kegging. I usually only rack once as I don't use a secondary.

So, when your boil is over, and you have trub in the bottom of the boil pot, do you siphon the cooled wort to the primary leaving the trub and hops behind? This would lessen my trub amount, but I wonder if that trub and hops adds flavor when fermentation kicks off for those three days? If I separated before the ferment, then that might help my volumes if it won't lose flavor etc for the beer. Thanks so much for your input!

This may sound harsh, but stop all the @#$%ing racking!

Yes, as it has been mentioned, you should expect to lose about two quarts of beer to the yeast cake. But you're going nuts. A little yeast is not going to hurt anything and going straight to the bottling bucket from the primary fermented is just fine.

For the last couple of brews I used ad 200 micron bag to hold my pellet hops so there is no trub left in the bottom of my kettle. I one pass through my plate chiller straight into the fermenter. I leave less than 2 cups of wort in the BK.

In the past I have dumped all trub/pellet hops into the fermenter and have had great brews. In my opinon the trub/hops aren't going to add any more flavor to the beer as all the bitter was done in the boil.

+1 to not racking so much.

No matter what you do, there's going to be some trub (and hop material if you add that to the boil without bagging them), in the bottom of your kettle. The thing you need to figure out is how much wort gets left behind with all that junk. Then you can figure out how big of a boil you need to get the desired 5-5.5 gallons in the fermentor.
(i.e. .5 gallon lost to trub/hot break/hop material. Shoot for 6.5 gallons pre-boil. Boil for an hour to get down to 5.5 or 5.75 gallons minus the .5 gallon of lost wort will get you 5 to 5.25 gallons in the fermentor.)

I struggled a bit with this early on. Ultimately though I simply increased my boil volume and/or topped up with water (adjusting the recipe to accommodate.)

I also don't sweat having trub/hops sludge in the fermenter at all. I have found it makes not a bit of difference in the beer. I usually ferment 3 weeks and cool the fermented beer down to 35ish f for a week before kegging for very clear beer.

These are my current numbers, for an APA - 4 oz pellets in the boil FWIW:

Boil volume 7.5 gallons
Evaporation rate 10% (boil time 70 mins)
Lost Trub 0.5 gallons
Final volume 5.9 gallons

When I keg this I will end up with about 1.5 inches of beer above the yeast cake after filling all the way up for pretty clear beer in a few days. What do I do with the excess beer you might ask? I siphon it into a jug and drink it flat, mmm mmm good!

+1 on not racking as much... it just isn't needed. +1 for using a hops bag. this cuts the amount of trub going to the fermentor. I have 5.5 gallons go into the fermentor, I keg 5 gallons with a small amount left over (enough to take a hydrometer sample)

a lot of people (myself included now) dry hop in primary a couple weeks after fermentation is done and FG has stabilized

i just use a paint strainer over the end of the racking cane to filter out the hops when i rack to bottling bucket

1) Get Beersmith
2) Calculate proper volumes for trub leave behind
3) End up with 5-5.5 gallons bottled
4) Profit (get drunk)

2b) Use a whirlpool method prior to siphoning

The main thing you need to get from recipes is the grain bill and additions. Actual water and grain quantities will vary depending on your own specific needs. Don't listen to all these people telling you not to rack so much. If that's what you want to do, then DO IT. Just be sure to adjust the recipe to fit your needs.

You should start out by saying "I want X gallons of beer in my keg or in bottles." Then work backwards and account for all your losses. Water/Wort/Beer losses:

1. Wort lost to atmosphere during boil (varies) ~ (up to 2.5 gallons)
2. Wort left in boil kettle with hops ~0.5 gallons
3. Beer left in primary with trub ~0.5 gallons
4. (Optional) Beer left in Secondary with more trub ~0.5 gallons
5. Water absorbed by grain
6. Wort left in mash tun

It all adds up. But if you want 5 gallons of beer in your serving keg, realistically you should shoot for 6 gallons of wort at the end of your boil. For me that means I will need 9.8 total gallons of water for the full brew session.

My last5-6 brews have been out of Jamil & Palmers book. Those are 6 gallon batches, meaning he shoots for 6 gallons at the end of the boil. I need almost 8 gallons pre boil to get six after the boil. I then cool the wort and let it sit in the kettle for awhile to settle. I transfer 5.5 gallons into the primary, and let it sit for 3-4 weeks. I then transfer 5 gallons into the bottling bucket, leaving all the trub/yeast behind. It's been working very well for me.

I had to adjust the recipies a bit in Beersmith, but I'm pretty consistent now.

Thanks so much for all the posts. I am sorry I didn't respond sooner. I went out of town and forgot the power cord for my laptop. I had started with a 6.5 gal boil, dumped all the boil and trub into primary but it was down to 5 gal. I must have had too much boil off AND since I used about a 18-19 lbs grain bill I transferred about 4.25 gal to the secondary due to grain trub. It was dry hopped free floating, so I bottled last night and when I moved it to the bottling bucket I had about 3.5 gal cause there was still sediment on the bottom. For the record, I only move the beer from the primary to secondary then bucket to bottle. I heard someone say they siphon from boil which I thought was too much also. I guess the larger the grain bill, the more trub, but I did use beer smith. I think you have to factor in the rate of boil plus grain bill and estimate for your own style while using beer smith and only racking to a secondary. Thanks for the heartfelt post nintendo! And I appreciate the harsher ones too! great topic for me... Thanks

I think I know another slight problem which sounds weird. I move my primary and secondary. Slowly as not to disturb the bed before siphoning, and this could fluff up the sediment bottom a little which makes it start sucking up dirty beer too early. I am never moving easily again before transfer. I know, it's stupid.

Oh, and the beer is amazing, it is a red ale IPA dry hopped and just amazing. Tried it flat, so in a few weeks i hope it wins a contest at foothills warthawgs brew meeting! I have a breakfast stout still aging, and a smash about ready to bottle. The beer we are talking about I am calling "Big hoppy red head" LOL

I move my carboys when I bottle too, but I just let them sit while I sterilize my bottles and such. By the time I am ready to bottle it has settled down again and I can bottle clear beer.

I use this fine mesh strainer bag over the top of my primary bucket to remove hop debris, break material, and whatever other junk I have in the kettle when pouring from the kettle to the fermenter:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/nylon-brew-bucket-filter-bag-fine-mesh.html. You can also go to a fabric store and get some Swiss Voile material (what I use for my BIAB) and make one for < $3.

Has the wonderful side effect of aerating the wort like crazy! If you have a hoppy beer, you may have to unclog the material 2-3 times (which you can easily do by grabbing it on both sides and rolling the trub back and forth until all of the liquid has passed through, and then turning it inside out to dump the junk in the garbage). I strain it through this twice - once into the fermenter, then dump the wort back into the kettle and repeat the process. I primarily do this for aeration, but also helps strain pretty much everything out.

The other benefit to this is that you have a VERY clean yeast cake in the primary after fermentation (1 get 1/2 - 1 inch of trub, and most of it is yeast), which makes it absurdly easy to wash the yeast for storage and re-use later.