Heat exchanger and Cold Break?

[XDeus]

I currently use a pathetic immersion chiller that takes at least a half hour to chill my wort. I now have a 30 plate heat exchanger on order, but I was wondering about the affects of allowing the cold break material in my primary now that it's being produced in the heat exchanger.

I have been using a primary only system lately and racking to a keg after one to two months in the primary. Has anyone done any experiments between using the two methods as far as the additional cold-break material sitting in the primary affecting the flavor of the beer?

My concern is that the extra cold break proteins will give my beer an off flavor or will I need to start using a secondary?

 

[scinerd3000]

i use a counterflow chiller and have a massive coldbreak with that and polyclar....I have yet to have any off flavors in any beers to date due to the beer sitting on the condensed protein layer and trub. If i have more than 1.5 inches in the bottom i will usually let it settle and rack off into a clean carboy to leave behind the trub/proteins before pitching but i do this rarely.

 

[Randar]

I haven't done any specific experiments as you requested. However, I recirculate back to the kettle through my CFC (as you would/could a plate exchanger) and whirlpool to allow as much break or sediment material to settle as reasonable before sending to fermentor. I think this does as good a job as any in terms of separating out excess hop/trub/break material pre-fermentation.

 

[samc]

Here is an article on the subject which coincides with my unscientific beliefs on the subject as I have not noticed any ill effects of cold break in the fermenter. If anything my beers have been better since using the plate chiller. I'm really not chilling much faster, so I can chalk it up to additional break material in fermenter. YMMV

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.2/barchet.html

 

[XDeus]

Thanks!

 

[shortyjacobs]

I make 11 gal batches in my keggle and put 5.5 gal into each fermenter. When I transfer, I typically get 1 carboy with clear wort, and a second carboy full of hot break, cold break, hops, and other sludge. They both get the same yeast pitched into them, and ferment the same. I've tracked the beers through my kegerator and not noticed a bit of difference between the clean one and the trubby one...so no worries on my part.