I brewed some Irish Red Ale last Sunday with a kit from LHBS. This was my first brew which involved steeping grains before the boil, and all went great. It was also the first time I used hops in a boil (previous brew used hopped extract). Anyway, it all went good, except for the fact that the recipe was actually for a 5.5 gallon brew, and I topped off the fermenter to 5 gallons. So, it'll have a bit more bite to it. I'm not too worried about it.
Anyway, another change in this brew from my first was that I used liquid yeast this time (White Labs Irish Ale). Fermentation started about fifteen hours after pitching, and everything was going perfectly. Around Wednesday primary fermentation subsided. Thursday evening, I decided to rack to secondary. I wanted to wait until Sunday for the 1-2-3 method, but with time constraints, and the fact that the volatile activity had already passed, I decided to rack a little earlier.
Boy, was I surprised at the amount of trub at the bottom! There was easily three times as much in this brew from the previous one. I assume the hop pellets contributed to this a little, but it seems to me that pitching the White Labs yeast with the high cell counts was the main contributor to the excess trub.
After racking, I noticed a lot more stuff floating around in the secondary than my first brew. Mainly, it was flocculating yeast, but there were also some flaky debris present. I think that may be remnants of the hop pellets that made it through the racking process, but I'm not sure. Is it normal to have a lot of floating material present during secondary?
Anyway, another change in this brew from my first was that I used liquid yeast this time (White Labs Irish Ale). Fermentation started about fifteen hours after pitching, and everything was going perfectly. Around Wednesday primary fermentation subsided. Thursday evening, I decided to rack to secondary. I wanted to wait until Sunday for the 1-2-3 method, but with time constraints, and the fact that the volatile activity had already passed, I decided to rack a little earlier.
Boy, was I surprised at the amount of trub at the bottom! There was easily three times as much in this brew from the previous one. I assume the hop pellets contributed to this a little, but it seems to me that pitching the White Labs yeast with the high cell counts was the main contributor to the excess trub.
After racking, I noticed a lot more stuff floating around in the secondary than my first brew. Mainly, it was flocculating yeast, but there were also some flaky debris present. I think that may be remnants of the hop pellets that made it through the racking process, but I'm not sure. Is it normal to have a lot of floating material present during secondary?