Whirlpool cone always breaks down

I have been creating a strong whirlpool using a spoon after chilling and then letting the wort sit covered for 30 min. I then drain the kettle to the ferment-er. My 15 gal kettle has a pickup tube on an elbow fitting bent to the contour of the kettle wall so it drains from the side of the kettle

When the kettle is close to being drained the trub cone begins to collapse and the starts flowing towards the pickup tube. Stopping the transfer of wort before draining any of the trub leaves about 1 gallon of wort behind.

Is the cone collapse normal?

The material is slightly heavier than the wort so it wants to sit at the bottom. When you drain the wort down the cone will collapse to stay beneath the liquid level causing it to flatten out towards the side wall and eventually be taken up by your pickup tube.

Bensiff said:

The material is slightly heavier than the wort so it wants to sit at the bottom. When you drain the wort down the cone will collapse to stay beneath the liquid level causing it to flatten out towards the side wall and eventually be taken up by your pickup tube.

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That is exactly what I am seeing. Makes sense now. Thanks!

I never worry about it too much. I actually take some of it until I start to see the heavy amounts coming out. I just can't watch a whole gallon of beer going away.

Bensiff said:

The material is slightly heavier than the wort so it wants to sit at the bottom. When you drain the wort down the cone will collapse to stay beneath the liquid level causing it to flatten out towards the side wall and eventually be taken up by your pickup tube.

Click to expand...

There are pictures out there on the interwebs showing nice trub cones sitting in the middle of an empty brew kettle, so I don't think this is always the case. I just read on another site, that chilling first will cause cold break to get mixed in with the hop trub and cause it to flatten like that. I'm pretty sure that some of the pics I've seen feature wort that was cooled and then whirlpooled. So, now I don't know what to believe.

You can always rack off of it later. I would never leave a gallon of precious wort behind.

Just my 2 cents.