Avoiding Cold-Break Proteins

I brewed an IPA on Sunday with 7 lbs DME and 1.25 lbs specialty grain. After the boil my immersion chiller and a little frozen distilled water brought the temp down to the 75 degree range very quickly and I saw lots of cold-break precipitates in the pot. My usual process is to whirlpool the wort and siphon off the side after it's settled, leaving all those proteins in the pot. After the whirlpool it sat for 45 minutes at least, and I added a Whirfloc tablet with the last hop addition.

Unfortunately, I started getting a lot of proteins in the last 2 - 2.5 gallons of wort. I must have lost nearly a gallon of wort because it was getting too thick to continue siphoning. How can I better avoid those proteins? Does the wort just need to settle longer after the whirlpool?

Are you fermenting in a carboy or a bucket?

I put my wort through a sanitized wire mesh strainer on its way to the bucket. Helps in aeration and filters out all the cold break/hop particles. Makes for less trub in the primary.

You probably had more pellet hop sludge than cold break since this was an IPA. I'd recommend using a nylon hop bag for at least your bittering and flavor hop additions. Since utilization goes down with these things, I'd recommend freefloating the last hop addition. You'd really be surprised how much hop particulates you can remove from the pot with the bag.

This is my first batch fermented in a carboy, but I've had a lot of luck siphoning out of the boil pot in the past. Come to think of it, though, my clearest beers had a good bit of wort left in the pot because I overdid the boil volume a bit.

As for the hops, I used the perforated insert that came with my 7.5 gal pot for the first time and it worked great. 6 ounces of whole leaf hops in the boil, and I just lifted out a basket after flameout and didn't have to worry about them again.

In that case, I'd recommend continuing to siphon even if it means getting more cold break in the primary. It's not a big deal.

I do what trencher discovered: I design my recipes for 6 gals after the boil, siphon off 5 gals of crystal clear wort to primary...

I don't even bother trying to remove any of this in my brews. I just dump the entire thing into the fermenting bucket and let it go. I have never had any problems with this method.

Yeah, it's not harmful at all. People who use a CFC or plate chiller have to take extra steps to filter it out and most don't, including me.