Filtering break material in BIAB

[kshuler]

I am a BIAB brewer and love it, although with a single caveat. The wort is not clear prior to boiling and the amount of hot break material is huge, and my understanding is that BIAB produces much more break material than a standard 3 vessel system. Anyone actually ever compared the same recipe’s hot break from BIAB and 3 vessel? My problem with hot break is not really academic but practical- I use a hopstopper (home made) and it gets clogged with break material. I chilled it several ways- 1) recirculating the cold wort back to the kettle and 2) going straight from the chiller to the fermentor. In method one, which I have attempted twice, the hopstopper got clogged each time- I have essentially abandoned this procedure at this point, but haven’t given up on figuring out how to make it work. In method 2, it STILL gets clogged about 30% of the time. Since so many people use these and have no problems even with massive hop bills, the assumption is that the thing gets clogged with break material, and not with hops.

As I fully intend to continue BIABing, the question becomes how can I decrease the hot break formation so the hopstopper won’t get clogged? My current method is to squeeze the hell out of the bag, sanitize the system by recirculating for 15 minutes at the BEGINNING of the boil (so I don’t have whirlfloc in), let the boil finish, add whirlfloc with 10 minutes to go, then drain the kettle through the plate chiller immediately into the fermentor. There is always a ton of hot break swirling around in the kettle, and there is also a MASSIVE amount of cold break in the fermentor. I don’t mind having cold break in as I understand it is not really harmful to the finished beer, but I want to exclude all the hot break. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the cold break either, so when I harvest yeast from the conical it is just yeast and not 2/3 cold break material.

So I had a thought last night, and I was wondering if anyone had tried it or had opinions or thoughts. Mostly, I just don’t want my hopstopper to ever clog again. Has anyone ever managed to get any significant amount of hot break out by fishing through the boiling wort with a strainer? Can one actually get a significant amount out this way? What about adding the whirlfloc at the BEGINNING of the boil so larger clumps show up... could that then be strained out easier with a strainer? What about getting an empty BIAB bag (with an extremely tight mesh), sticking it over the boiling kettle and putting the recirculation line into the bag so it catches everything solid that is recirculating? If I were to stick a whirlfloc tab in the bag, couldn’t I make the flocs bigger , thus making it possible to catch all of those particles in the bag as the wort is being recirculated? How about with cold break? Could I use the same trick and recirculate chilled wort to the BIAB bag in the kettle and catch all of the cold break, thus transferring only nice clear wort?

If anyone has ever tried any of this I would sure like to know how it worked, as it would save me experimenting on a few batches.

 

[samc]

I just use a small mesh strainer and skim the surface during the initial boil stages. It's about a minutes worth of work stretched over ten minutes. Last brew I easily filled a gallon container with break foam. I've always done this even when I wasn't a BIABer. But you are right I seem to get more break, but I've been attributing it to my 100F rest for PH adjustment, which could be wrong.

 

[eulipion2]

I use a homemade "hop taco," basically two SS mesh kitchen splatter screens sewn together with SS thread (looking for other options, such as split rings). It might get clogged, at which point I just scrape the crud off the screen with my mash paddle. Gets me through.

I BIAB as well as No-Chill, so this all takes place at near-boiling temperatures

 

[kshuler]

Had a thought. The thing that seems to clog my hopstopper is cold break. Hot break seems to cause no issues. I have one of the "trub filters" from Brewers Hardware. Were I to get the 0.2mm mesh covering, and put the trub filter AFTER the chiller, do you think that the filter would catch all the cold break, or do you think this would just get clogged?

 

[Tyru007]

The BIAB method allows a lot more fines and small particles into the boil. I would think that this combined with hops and hot break would clog a .5mm filter pretty quick. A finer mesh covering is going to cause more issues. Possibly your could use a roughing filter or a hopback prior to the trub filter. Maybe you could put whole leaf hops in the your filter and turn it into a hopback.

I've always found that chilling and settling works very well. I chill the wort to get the cold break and then transfer everything (no aeration yet) over to a sterilized glass carboy. I let it settle in the carboy for about 2-4 hours. A lot of times I will get a line with clear wort on top that moves toward the bottom which is the proteins coagulating and filtering as they drop. I then transfer and aerate to my primary and pitch my yeast.

Some people will go "O my gosh, you didn't pitch your yeast right away", but if you make sure everything is clean and make a good active 1-2 Liter yeast starter, your yeast will be way ahead of any bactierial that might have been introduced.

I never use a secondary, I never have contamination and I never have chill haze.

My only other thought would be to pass the wort through the strainer prior to boiling to remove all the grain particles.