Yes or No on pouring wort through strainer?

Im brewing my second batch tomorrow and I am trying to learn from the first. I seemed to lose quite a bit of beer from leaving room above the sediment so I wouldn't transfer it to the secondary fermenter. Some say to use a strainer, others say not to. What is the real deal? I bought a funnel with a strainer insert but I want to know if straining the wort will harm or improve the beer. Im brewing an IPA with centennial hops and Im using an active yeast starter. Thanks for the tips

In my opinion, it's not worth it.. I don't feel that that tiny bit of beer left in the fermenter is worth the hassle. I just siphon until the siphon stops and i doubt that I leave more than 16-20 oz of beer behind. Also, there are those that will tell you that you can never truly sanitize a strainer.. I don't know that I personally believe that because I use one from the brew pot into the fermenter and I have for 15 years and have had only one infection in hundreds of batches.

it seems to me that if you were using a strainer from the primary to 2ndary, (IF I am understanding this correctly) that you will have to place the strainer in the funnel in the mouth of the carboy and run your transfer hose into the funnel which means the beer would "splash" into the 2ndary, introducing plenty of nasty oxygen.. not a good thing.

By the way, when racking to the secondary it's no longer "wort".. it's now yummy,luscious BEER!

Im sorry. I meant straining the wort into the primary fermenter from the kettle. On my first batch, I just poured the wort directly in without straining.

Definitely allways syphon beer to 2ndary. I like to syphon wort to primary as well so funnels aren't necessary.
The loss is minimal and may be considerred a sacrifice to the beer gods.

From what I've read here it really makes no difference. But I brew small batches 1.75g into bottling bucket so I really try to keep all loses to a minimum. I was given these paint strainers which fit right into a 5 or 6.5 gallon bucket. Probably can get them from HD or a wholesale paint shop.

If you really want that last pint of wort, strain away. There should be no oxydation issues with chilled sort. The main objective is to get the brew off the hop and protein sludge.

McGlothan said:

Im sorry. I meant straining the wort into the primary fermenter from the kettle. On my first batch, I just poured the wort directly in without straining.

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I always strain the wort through a metal strainer and funnel, that have been soaking in Star San, into the carboy after chilling. I use hop pellets so this cuts down on some of the crap getting into the fermenter. Does it make a difference? Probably not but it's what I do and will continue to do.

I mostly do PMs & BIAB, but I always pour through a big strainer for 2 reasons:
1) to strain out any errant grain or hop sludge.
2) to areate the wort.
So far it's worked well for me, haven't had a bad batch yet (knocks on wood) though for any other sort of vessel transfer I rack with the auto siphon.
Regards, GF.

I used to always strain through a filter. It aerated the wort very well and clarity would improve slightly. However, it was a pain to sit there and constantly stir the sludge around so the wort could actually get through the filter and into the primary.

Then I heard some of that trub can actually be beneficial to the yeast. So I just add everything to the bucket now. Yes I have to wait a bit more for the trub to settle out, but my beer matures and tastes less green anyhow.

Either way, you'll make great beer if you maintain good brewing and sanitization practices. It just depends on how much working and waiting you want to do.

I too use a strainer when dumping from the boil kettle to the primary (just make sure it is well sanitized. It cuts down on crud and aerates the wort.

I've gone three different methods, and not really seen a significant difference in the end product either way, but there can definitely be a difference in the amount of work:

1) Dump everything from the boil kettle into the fermenter, don't bother straining or avoiding the trub at all. Especially with extract beers, where there's generally less hot break material, there's not much downside to this approach.

2) Run the wort through a strainer. This can get tedious, especially if you use pellet hops, because the strainer can get clogged up. You need to have a sanitized spoon handy and stir pretty constantly to keep the strainer clear. In my opinion, the extra effort just wasn't justified by any difference in the end product.

3) Scale your brew up by roughly 1/2 gallon and PLAN to leave behind 1/4 to 1/2 gallon in the kettle. This is especially useful when it comes to all grain beers and hoppier beers, where hops and break material start to become more abundant. Yes, the first couple of times it hurts to see that wort left behind, but you come to accept it as "the cost of doing business". If you read Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles, he formulates every recipe as 6 gallons for precisely this reason - he assumes 1/2 gallon lost to trub in the kettle, and another 1/2 lost to trub in the fermenter.

I use a strainer. I have a fine wire mesh strainer for using on my ale pails and a big brewers funnel with a strainer for using on glass carbouys. Both are big enough that I can sanitize them in some idophor water and then set them where they need to be and pour away.

The pouring helps aerate the wort going into the primary, which I like.

Yes.

I do it twice, with a double strainer.

First from kettle to chill-pot, going through a large gauge mesh strainer and a smaller one...I dont use hop bags so this is great

Next, I pour the chilled wort through a fine mesh strainer on top of a double funnel with another strainer in the middle...really aerates the wort

Finally, clogging is never an issue, just stop the transfer and empty the strainer real quick, takes 2 seconds.

stratslinger said:

If you read Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles, he formulates every recipe as 6 gallons for precisely this reason - he assumes 1/2 gallon lost to trub in the kettle, and another 1/2 lost to trub in the fermenter.

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That's what I do and beer is crystal clear.

MaxOut said:

That's what I do and beer is crystal clear.

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Yeah, I guess I hadn't made it clear, but this is what I've been doing for my last several batches now too, to similar results.

I think calculating 1 gallon of loss is overestimating. I generally lose 1/3-1/2 gallon and that is with two carboys. I also use Irish moss, gelatin, & a cold crash and my beer is crystal.

I don't filter the wort before going into primary - I usually add hops at flameout so it is senseless IMO to filter out the hops that have only been in the wort for a few minutes. I'll pour everything in the primary and let it mingle for about a week or so, then I use a fine mesh filter while transferring to secondary. This removes all the debris from the wort so it can clean up in the secondary for another week. If I dry-hop, I'll do it in the secondary and filter again while transferring to bottles/keg.

Jamil has stated some trub is good for yeast food. He also said for ales he just throws the whole thing in. everything settles out for mine and i still can get a clean yeast harvest

Fining agents are also not needed for clear beer. As long as the process was healthy, you should have clear beer after cold crash.

actually, you should have clear beer from 4 week primary

Strain if you like, but it had better be a very fine strainer. Most of the trub material will fall out of suspension on it's own. If you want really clear beer, then cold crash it to have the yeast fall out of suspension too. Here is what cold crashing gets you if done properly. This was a AG IPA with 3 weeks in primary (1 week primary fermentation and 2 weeks of dry hopping).

http://i1065.photobucket.com/albums/u385/Koinz04/Al1IearCEAAgsFI.jpg

I use a strainer to catch hop particles and create a sort of filter for those big protein chains. It does a double duty of helping (albeit not much) to aerate.

what about using a plate filter or beer filter right after the chiller and into the fermenter ?

CrankyBeaverBrewery said:

what about using a plate filter or beer filter right after the chiller and into the fermenter ?

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Not needed. This is beer, not wine. Get back to basics!

I've tried using a paint strainer bag twice now, and both times the bag clogged up and then broke dumping all the crap that I was trying to filter out into the fermenting bucket anyway. Now I just dump the entire contents of the kettle into the bucket like I always did. It all settles to the bottom by the time I rack the beer to the bottling bucket anyway.

There is only good to doing it,
yeast food,
same taste,
clarity is depending on other techniques.

Back to basics! Heat up water, throw it in, boil it and ferment, No Worries!