How important is it to filter from kettle to fermentation?

I try to use my 9" funnel with a filter screen. But it usually gets clogged right away. Is there a better way to filter? Usually I just ditch the funnel filter and pour the kettle straight in.

How necessary is it to filter?

I usually keep the beer in primary fermentation for 4 weeks.
Thanks,
Lorne

It's not necessary at all.

If you read Palmer's book he says some of that junk is beneficial.

I tried to filter my first 2 batches, 4 years ago. 70+ batches have not been filtered.

Totally agree with BigRob...you can whirlpool to get most of the big stuff to the center of the kettle, away from the outlet, but my experience is that cold crashing after primary fermentation drops everything to the bottom. Prost!

Gravity is the best filter

Time and cold clears very well with a little patience...

I'm going to assume you are pouring your wort from your kettle into your fermentor and do not have a valve at the bottom of it.
Use an ale pail as a fermentor and pour in through a large spaghetti strainer. They tend not to clog so easily and if they do you can dump the sludge into a nearby trash can rather easily.
Hope this helps.

wilserbrewer said:

Gravity is the best filter

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^^^This. Let the earth do the work for you.

lorne17 said:

I try to use my 9" funnel with a filter screen. But it usually gets clogged right away. Is there a better way to filter? Usually I just ditch the funnel filter and pour the kettle straight in.

How necessary is it to filter?

I usually keep the beer in primary fermentation for 4 weeks.
Thanks,
Lorne

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I don't keep the beer in the fermenter for 4 weeks, but I don't really filter at all. I have a CFC, so all of the cold break ends up in the fermenter and I don't have a way to filter out hot break or pellet hops debris with my system. I do 'filter' out leaf/whole hops as much as possible by either using a bazooka tube or a hops spider because those will clog up my pump and my whole system, but otherwise I don't have a way to do it.

Paps said:

I'm going to assume you are pouring your wort from your kettle into your fermentor and do not have a valve at the bottom of it.
Use an ale pail as a fermentor and pour in through a large spaghetti strainer. They tend not to clog so easily and if they do you can dump the sludge into a nearby trash can rather easily.
Hope this helps.

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I have a spigot on bottom of my kettle and pour through that. But it doesn't keep much out.

I may throw it into my drop freeze kegerator when is time to cold crash it. Do I do this the day before moving to secondary?

I use an in-line trub filter now since I went to a plate chiller. But I haven't noticed a taste or clarity difference in my beers.

lorne17 said:

I have a spigot on bottom of my kettle and pour through that. But it doesn't keep much out.

I may throw it into my drop freeze kegerator when is time to cold crash it. Do I do this the day before moving to secondary?

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If you use a secondary, you can do it after. For many styles you can crash the primary then keg/bottle.

Here is some information to help you decide.

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/


Personally I use whirfloc and give the wort a good stir after cooled then let it sit for a hour or so before siphoning off the clear stuff. The extra wort is calculated ahead of time for most recipes and it gives more head space in the fermenter so I can usually use just a airlock.

Ditch the little filter that fits in the bottom of the funnel (if that's what you're talking about) and set something like this on top of your funnel: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R59S3VC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I use a strainer similar to this one and it does a great job at keeping all the hop debris out of the fermenter. It can still clog up but I usually only have to dump it out once.

The only reason I run the wort thru a strainer is to aerate to wort. It doesn't "filter" per se, but I does catch some chunks. I end up putting it all in from the Kettle trub and all. It all settles out in the fermenter. I rarely use a secondary. When I do its to add bourbon soaked charred wood, or chocolate nibs, etc.

I don't filter but I do have my volumes set to leave most gunk behind in the concave bottom of my keggle. Ill be interested to see the difference in trub with my new flat bottom kettles.

I do all EBIAB and pump my wort through a counterflow chiller into the fermenter bucket, I catch all the trub I can with a 5 gallon paint strainer I get at the Home Depot and discard the contents when done before pitching. I find that when I transfer to the secondary, the "gunk" layer is lower than my spout so I can transfer right from the bucket spout with little or no sediment in the corny that I use for my secondary.

It works for me, i am sure there are better solutions than mine but I do like they way it streamlines my process.

I pour through a fine mesh grain bag, that is over the funnel with the strainer. I started filtering after beginning the harvest of the yeast from the primary. I was losing to much yeast with the rinsing method. With filtering I can pour the remaining slurry in the fermentor into a quart jar, ending up with 350 to 400 ml of clean yeast.

I had a poorly made jig to hold the bag, but that broke. My wife is the helper now.

I use a plastic big mouth bubbler and put a sanitized paint strainer bag or a biab grain bag in the big mouth. I leave it hang over the edges just like the kettle with biab. I pour right into the bag from the valve and pull out the bag as soon as it's full. I did it this way because using a spaghetti strainer I'd have to stop and clean the strainer every gallon or so. The new way works great!

I always filter before transferring into primary. I use a nine inch funnel as well but I cut and sanitize a couple feet of cheese clothe. I then have a friend stretch the cheese cloth out and move the cheese cloth as i pour. This prevents the cheese cloth from becoming clogged and then also aerates the wort in one single pour. I usually agitate a little as well but i never have to pour back and forth unless the recipe calls for additional aeration. As for people saying that this will remove too many proteins and then negatively influence primary fermentation. I have not found that this influences primary fermentation negatively. The batch will still have the trub but it wont have any floaties. The trub will continue to flocculate throughout the fermentation, even in secondary.

I used to with my funnel filter. Then stopped. Not a particularly noticable difference one way or another in final beer quality. Saves a lot of time not filtering.

Cold crashing, now THAT has made a huge difference. My cold crashed ales are massively clearer than my non-cold crashed ales. Granted, some poor flocculant strains are still a bit cloudy, but even they are clearer. My highly flocculant strains are super clear.

As for secondary, I don't do it any more except the occasional fruit beer.

Notice no difference either way. If it is for clarity, cold crashing does infinitely more for clarity. Same with irish moss, just doesn't do much compared to cold crashing.

For when, if I remember 36-48hrs in advance. If I dont' remember, however long before bottling there is left (12 even. If less than 12hrs, I just skip it).

I siphon from kettle to fermentor

Cold crashing actually makes a huge difference. I totally agree with that. One thing to consider is i run a nine gallon kettle with a bazzoka filter and a ball cap, when i filter the wort through the strainer its already pretty clean and doesnt clog too much. I mainly use the cloth to help aerate if i dont want to use an oxygen tank to inject. To me it feels natural now because i just use my nylon bag i use to mash, after it has been cleaned and sterilized and i just run the wort over that. I find filtering the wort during aeration, racking to secondary, and cold crashing all seem to improve overal clarity of the beer. Cold crashing definitely the most, and it helps mellow out a lot of flavors. Its kinda a mini lager, removes some of those exotic ale tastes and makes for a beer thats easier to drink for the non enthusiast.

Vorlauf! If you do a decent job of vorlaufing BEFORE you collect wort for your boil you can greatly cut down on the amount of trub that ends up in your fermenter. Either way it won't hurt anything, but it will cut down on amount of beer you rack for bottling/kegging. I've be using a HERMS that continuous recirculates through the mash tun. The result is that after fermentation the only thing at the bottom of the fermenter is - you guessed it - one beautiful white yeast cake. No trub to speak of. . . Vorlauf- easier to do than to say!
P

I used to use a filter

It's one step I've taken out of my process - waste of time and cleanup.

I like the idea of using a BIAB in a big mouth bubbler. That would filter without a whole lot of effort. What I have been doing is just dumping and leaving most of the trub behind in the kettle. A lot tends to be on the bottom. I'm also starting to think I might start using hop sacks for pellets again.

@ the people that filter, does the filtering remove both the hops and break material, and how much time does it take?

Basic Brewing did a experiment with one batch getting everything dumped including hop matter and the other nice clean wort off the top. End results showed better clarity and fermentation with all that trub and hop debris. I want to say with the triangle test they couldn't tell flavor wise just visual between the two. Feel this is one of those myths that come with brewing that everyone just follows and never questions. With that being said do what works for you, relax and have a homebrew!!

kh54s10 said:

I tried to filter my first 2 batches, 4 years ago. 70+ batches have not been filtered.

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70+ batches? No way you can drink all that on your own. I'll PM you my address so you can offload

Bazooka tube does it for me, my reasoning is that I want as much beer as I can get for my efforts and the debris in the FV take some space and I waste more when draining out to the bottling bucket.

Crispyvelo said:

70+ batches? No way you can drink all that on your own. I'll PM you my address so you can offload

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I don't drink all of it, just most of it. This is also over a 4 year timespan.

fartinmartin said:

Bazooka tube does it for me, my reasoning is that I want as much beer as I can get for my efforts and the debris in the FV take some space and I waste more when draining out to the bottling bucket.

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I bag my hops so I don't get much debris in the FV. I lose less than a full bottle of beer when finished siphoning. I would say you lose the same amount that doesn't get in the fermenter in the first place.

I don't, I'm new but I feel that the stuff from being is beneficial and filtering it off may lower your og. I don't have any proof but, in not looking for the clearest beer I can make, just the most flavorful one. I do either filter when transferring to bottling bucket or at least make sure that I don't pick up the crap at the bottom. Irish sorry works for clarity fwiw.

jaydlaw said:

I don't, I'm new but I feel that the stuff from being is beneficial and filtering it off may lower your og. I don't have any proof but, in not looking for the clearest beer I can make, just the most flavorful one. I do either filter when transferring to bottling bucket or at least make sure that I don't pick up the crap at the bottom. Irish sorry works for clarity fwiw.

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Filtering the beer will not change the gravity. And that whole filter before bottling bit, that can oxidize the beer and negatively influence shelf life as well as the flavor of the beer.

lorne17 said:

I try to use my 9" funnel with a filter screen. But it usually gets clogged right away. Is there a better way to filter? Usually I just ditch the funnel filter and pour the kettle straight in.

How necessary is it to filter?

I usually keep the beer in primary fermentation for 4 weeks.
Thanks,
Lorne

Click to expand...

I dump just about everything into my primary. No issues when it comes to the small scale brewing that most of us enjoy. I use an immersion chiller, so I don't have to worry about clogging anything up. When using whole leaf, I use a large stainless hop spider in the kettle. Lesson learned.

If you're gonna dump it all in, just make sure you have a large enough bucket or carboy to make life easier when you eventually transfer.

As for secondaries, I like to store my starsan in one. Best use I've found so far...

dogslapbrewery said:

Basic Brewing did a experiment with one batch getting everything dumped including hop matter and the other nice clean wort off the top. End results showed better clarity and fermentation with all that trub and hop debris. I want to say with the triangle test they couldn't tell flavor wise just visual between the two. Feel this is one of those myths that come with brewing that everyone just follows and never questions. With that being said do what works for you, relax and have a homebrew!!

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Thats really peculiar. I did the same test a few months back...with four different batches and got the opposite results. The filtered batch did take a few extra days to attenuate, but it was much clearer with a slightly lighter body. Futhermore, the batches that had been filtered had a greater yeild of about 36 ozs.

And to add to the whole vorlaufing bit, thats only if you arent using a BIAB set up. If you are using a BIAB, which you really should be, then you are good to go. If you arent using BIAB then vorlaufing is on point.

TycoRossBrewing said:

Filtering the beer will not change the gravity. And that whole filter before bottling bit, that can oxidize the beer and negatively influence shelf life as well as the flavor of the beer.

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I understand and it would depend on the filtering method. That being said, a muslin bag over the intake of my siphon will stop it from getting clogged, and still allow a free flow of liquid. that's my plan for transferring from carboy to bottling bucket.

also, less wort means more water to top off at 5 gal, which would effect the gravity.

boil kettle into fermenter: I filter from with my bazooka stainless tube. Other than that I don't filter. I actually want some of the trub in the fermenter. I have read from the Brulosopher that fermentation with trub actually helps with clarity of the final beer.

fermenter to keg: when I keg some yeast and hops and trub from the fermenter makes it in, since I ferment in a bucket and it comes out of the spout on the bucket. But then I chill the keg. When I pull the first 1/2 pint most of the free sediment comes out. After that as long as I don't move the keg the beer is pretty clear. It gets clearer over time as well as the cold temps sink most of the free wheeling sediment.