Improving loss to trub from mini fermenter

[kmbell]

So I've gotten back into brewing and I was seduced by the shiny finish and simplicity of the Ss Brewing Technologies Brew Bucket Mini (http://www.ssbrewtech.com/products/brew-bucket-mini).

It's a great little fermenter perfect for the half-batches that will fit in our tiny apartment and more importantly, no more trying in vain to get the krausen out of the little crevices in the lid of my plastic bucket.

Here's the kicker: with my last 2.75 gal batch, which I dry hopped, I was only able to yield 2 gallons from the spigot.

Would be very interested in what yields others have managed with the same setup and how they did it.

Here are my thoughts:

- Part of the loss was from was the mess of adding 1 oz of loose hops, a bag weighted with marbles would free up some beer that was rendered useless by the hops;
- Moving the fermenter to its high perch before starting to drain the liquid would minimize the sloshing of the yeast and hops and hopefully yield some more clarified beer;
- As a last resort, I could use a racking cane, but this would make the built-in spigot a bit redundant, other than for stealing samples to test gravity before bottling

Perhaps adding finings could compact down the trub to below the spigot intake valve. Cold crashing is difficult because our fridge is tiny.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JohnSand]

I haven't used, or seen your fermenter. But when I used MrBeer's Little Brown Keg, it was common practice to place something under the front of it while fermenting. That made the trub deeper toward the rear, away from the spigot. Remove this when it is time to drain, and raise the other end.
I always put my buckets on the counter before preparing anything else. Hopefully the yeast settles before I keg.
You can probably cold crash in a cooler.
Good luck.

 

[kmbell]

It looks like this: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0239/5187/products/DSC_9466_grande.jpg

Not sure if you can tell, but it has a nice conical bottom but then the spigot it a few inches above the cone, and it has an elbow tube: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0239/5187/products/brewbucketminiinteriorpic_grande.jpeg

I think this time around I'll move it to the counter the night before and try rotating the elbow tube around to face inwards, which should reach more of the beer.

 

[MindenMan]

I have a couple of ideas, two that i always use actually; using Irish moss or Sparkelloid as a fining agent, and getting the pot as cool as is possible helps a lot too. At your local home repair store there should be 5 gallon size paint strainers; they come in packs of 2 and cost around $5.00. Since your kettle and your fermenter are the same container, I would put a metal strainer with the paint filters in it above a 5 gallon bucket (or so) and drain the trub through the strainer into the bucket. This will help to aerate the wort and will catch 80% or more of the hot and cold break keeping it out of the fermenter which also helps to keep the trub to a minimum when transferring to the bottling bucket.

EDIT: I did not see the picture of the fermenter hence part of my post. I always use Irish Moss theses day as I tried Sparkelloid and didn't like the results; mostly the lack of results is what I did not like. I cool my B/K as much as possible and run the wort over the doubled paint strainers into my fermenter. Even though it does a few extra minutes this way, I lose less then 1/2 cup between the kettle and the fermenter, and there is so little "dust" that gets past the paint strainers that the amount of trub left after fermentation is minimal. At that point I cold crash for three days and lose maybe 3/4 cup between the fermenter and the bottling bucket. Yes, my method is slow, but I don't lose 1/2 gallon or more when I brew a batch of beer anymore.

 

[kmbell]

MindenMan, thanks for the tip. I've used Irish Moss maybe once before when the recipe called for it and plan to grab some again. I didn't really pay attention to the clarifying effect, but now I have a control group with these last few beers. Do you use it on all beers except those you plan to be purposely cloudy like a hefeweizen?

The fermenter is actually not a kettle, it's just a shiny stainless fermenter, so I just pour my kettle contents through a sanitized kitchen strainer, which captures most of the hops. I've been doing BIAB, so haven't had much other grains in the wort. The loose hops muddling around in the yeast as I started to drain the fermenter were probably more of an issue.

 

[JohnSand]

If there is room, you might brew a slightly larger batch.
Keep us posted.

 

[kmbell]

I'm in the process of assembling my kegerator/temperature control chamber so I'll cold crash before kegging. I imagine that will improve my yield.

 

[kmbell]

Success! So it turns out the Mini Brew Bucket's faucet tube can be rotated nicely to get nearly all the beer from the fermenter as it nears the bottom. That, and not agitating the trub got me down to maybe less than 12 oz of waste apart from the yeast cake.

I racked to my new 3-gal kegging setup and should be drinking it this weekend.

 

[JohnSand]

Glad to hear it.