How many whirlpool?

I am wondering how many of you whirlpool your wort before transfer to the fermentation vessel? I find that there is no easy way to do this and that is because at the end of the transfer the trub cone flatens out and you end up sucking some of that into the carboy. I am looking for a better way to do this.

I whirlpool and it works very well for me. I have very large pots and my drain is set slightly above the bottom of the pot so I can keep most of the trub out. The little bit that gets in is left behind in the primary when I rack.

I whirlpool every time, works great for me.

Do a search, or check the WIKI, there's a great instructional thread around here about this that I just read.

The trick is to not get greedy. boil a little more wort and when you transfer, leave a little behind by stopping flow with a pinch clamp. That way, no proteins even get in primary.

I boil 25L for 23L into primary. Here is the result of my whirlpool. I often save all that extra wort by canning it and using it for starters. Though lately I've been lazy.

whirlpool... my yahoo brother and i pick up and transfer the smoldering pot to the cooling station, that way the cone is in tact more or less.

I am either too impatient or clumsy because I can never get it to make a cone

joebou4860 said:

I am either too impatient or clumsy because I can never get it to make a cone

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I use a full tablet (recommended amount is 1/2 tablet) of irish moss in my boil. The coagulated hot break helps to hold the hops cone together. Try using a tiny bit more irish moss in the last 10 minutes of your boil.

I also have trouble getting a good whirlpool. The way my bazooka filter and chiller interfere with each other makes it hard to get a good spin going. Also, the bazooka itself stops particles. But unless I've used more than an ounce of pellets, the filter takes care of almost everything.

So is the main benefit of whirlpooling and draining through a spigot on the pot to save your back from lifting the pot (or in the case of 10 gal batches not being able to lift it)? I've always just gotten a helper and dumped the whole pot through a strainer into my primary which seems to aerate it pretty well at the same time. Is this a bad practice?

I whirlpool and it works very well... as long as I get a good whirlpool going. I started out with a sweet homemade hop taco, but it clogged with pellet hops, so I gave up on it. Now I have a keggle with a weldless ball valve assembly that goes to the bottom/side of the inside of the keg to collect the wort. I will admit, there are 2 to 3 qts of wort left over, but I just make bigger batches and my efficiency is in the 90s, so it doesn't hurt as much money-wise. I always end up with 10 full gallons at bottling time.

I rack my cooled wort from my kettly into primary and hold the end of the hose about 5 inches from my strainer, insuring a great amount of aeration and not having to lift my kettle. Dont whirlpool because my kettle doesnt have a spigot.

I've been Whirlpooling my batches for a while. I like to use a ss strainer at the end of my drain tube in to the carboy as well. I find that I loose a bit of wort, so I think i will start brewing larger batches to compensate.

I've tried whirlpooling a few times but I think the immersed elements in my pot are stopping the flow at the bottom so I don't really get a cone.

I use a stainless braid in my brew kettle (ball valve) and have no issues. The yeast cake is always clean, not much else in there. And I let the cold break go right into the fermenter.

I don't whirlpool, but then I use leaf hops and a bazooka screen. The leaf hops actually form a filter bed and I don't get much into the primary.


When I design my keggle, I might install an extra fitting with a 90 degree bend on the inside of the keg, against the wall of the keggle (about a third of the way up from the bottom) and use a pump to take wort from the spigot and send it through the 90, thus creating a nice whirlpool with virtually no effort. I might use pellets at this point.

I whirlpool every time and when I remember I use Irish moss or Whirlfloc. There are a few other trub coagulants out there and one is on ebay if that is an issue.

I used to have a real b!tch of a time getting a decent whirlpool going with my paddle and for that reason alone I never got a cone. I started using a paint stir rod, http://www.mrlongarm.com/paintmud.html, that I put in the boil for the last 15 minutes with the IC and the attached that to the drill and really get a good one going before I let it sit and cool for the next 15 minutes.

I have had very good results with this process and would recommend it to others that are having an issue with creating a whirlpool in their kettles.

I just made this today and think it should work. Ill let ya know if it does. From all the talk I read, it shouldn't work but ill try it out and then if it doesn't ill reduce the outflow size.

Yes im going to clean my kettle before I use it.........

I never whirlpool. I tried it once, using my autosiphon to transfer the wort to the primary. The cone flattened out, so I could either leave a lot of wort behind or dump it all in. I hate to waste wort. I'm not convinced it is necessary for my system anyway. I figure that all that material will fall out anyway and I'll trasfer my wort into a secondary in about a week anyway.

I whirlpool and at the end of racking I tilt the kettle while holding on to the ball valve lever. Once I see the first bit of hops/break head towards the pickup tube I shut it off. I loose less than a pint.

craprocker said:

Yes im going to clean my kettle before I use it.........

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Dude. How do you have 4,294,967,295 posts?! When I went to view your posts, it showed 16. Are you a hacker or something?

craprocker said:

Yes im going to clean my kettle before I use it.........

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You ever give this thing a whirl so to speak? Looks ingenius...did it work?