straining wort

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J-bone

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I'm a newbie. Made my first batch on Saturday Dec 1st. India Pale Ale from a kit, plus extra hops for more bitter. After it cooled down enough to add to the Carboy, I began quickly pouring it in. Then realized there was a ton of sediment, and that I should probably be straining it the whole time. I strained the last 1/4 of it, but there is an inch and a half of hops in the bottom of the Carboy. Is this ruining my beer?
Should I siphon it into another Carboy so that the hops aren't steeping way too much bitter into my brew? Or should I leave it the way it is to avoid upsetting the yeast or running the risk of contaminating my batch. There is good foam happening in the Carboy so far. I'm worried about undrinkable bitter beer.
Thanks
J-bone
 
this question. Did my very first batch on Saturday. I DID use a funnel which had a strainer. I was amazed how much junk was in the wort. It took a long time to strain the entire 1.5 gallons of wort into the carboy...
 
You will be fine. I have read several articles that point out that leaving hop residue in the primary or secondary actually helps the beer to clear. You can strain it going into your bottling bucket no problem, just dont get any splashing or bubbles.
 
There sure are a lot of bones in this thread... not sure if that's good or bad :drunk:

Seriously though, you'll be fine. Anything that didn't get strained will settle to the bottom and you'll siphon off the top of it when you rack to secondary, leaving almost all of it behind.
 
we still had about half gallon of water that needed to be added to make 5 gallons, so we poured the water through the accumulated sludge that was in the screened funnel....
 
TheBone said:
we still had about half gallon of water that needed to be added to make 5 gallons, so we poured the water through the accumulated sludge that was in the screened funnel....

That's called sparging (although I think something else is called sparging in all-grain brewing) and is a good thing.
 
jmiracle said:
That's called sparging (although I think something else is called sparging in all-grain brewing) and is a good thing.

That's what Alton Brown calls sparging, but the actual technical term is 'topping off'. :D :p
 
I've made 4 batches thus far and have only poured my wort into my fermenter/carboy. I haven't strained at all. I've never noticed any sediment other then perhaps a tablespoonful or two.
 
Thanks for the votes of confidence...
Seems like a funnel with a strainer in it is the way to go when making beer with lots of hops.
Appreciate it folks
J-bone
 
I don't think sediment from an extract batch is a big deal in the fermenter, especially for batches that don't use a ton of whole hops.
I always primary in buckets and what works for me is a jumbo strain bag (I've heard paint strains are similar) in the primary like a garbage bag in the trash can. After I pour the wort in the primary I pull the strainer out and squeeze the hops to extract a little more wort. Easy and effective. I tried to use a funnel with strainer and found the funnel to plug way to quick.
Craig
 
I used to use a funnel with strainer for this purpose, but found that it gets blocked/slow flow in a HURRY. On my last batch of beer (admittedly all-grain, but the principle is the same), I used a simply kitchen collander to remove the hops from the finished wort. As long as you throroughly sanitize the collander (of course), it works great. The holes all the way up the side mean that it's not blocked until it's full, and most collanders are sturdy enough to stand up to a little "pressing" to get some of the excess liquid out.

BLM
 
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