Skimming hot break poll

[MHBT]

Skimming hot break or leaving it in, what do you do and why? I skim cause i have a smaller kettle and it helps lower chances of boil over and from what I researched aids in the shelf life of beer( supposedly) and less trub

 

[MaxStout]

I skim. As long as I'm standing around watching a boil kettle, might just as well scoop out some of the crap that would otherwise end up in my fermenter.

I get a lot of it just before it reaches a boil.

Jury's out on whether it helps reduce haziness in my finished beers.

 

[MHBT]

I skim. As long as I'm standing around watching a boil kettle, might just as well scoop out some of the crap that would otherwise end up in my fermenter.

I get a lot of it just before it reaches a boil.

Jury's out on whether it helps reduce haziness in my finished beers.

Yeah i heard it leaving it in makes for clearer beer

 

[oakbarn]

No skimming!

 

[MaxStout]

Yeah i heard it leaving it in makes for clearer beer

Didn't know that--sounds counterintuitive. But maybe that stuff helps precipitate some of the haze-forming compounds.

 

[MHBT]

Didn't know that--sounds counterintuitive. But maybe that stuff helps precipitate some of the haze-forming compounds.

To be honest i never did an experiment myself so its hear say but i believe brulosophy did something on it

 

[Kickass]

I just let it do it’s thing, no skimming. More or less the same with trub, au naturel baby!

 

[BluetickBrewing]

My step father taught me to skim, but he was also super cautious to not aerate the wort. If I'm feeling frisky I'll skim but in general I just let er rip.

 

[sibelman]

I went back to older books in my little brewing bookshelf but could not find the advice (in favor of skimming hot break) I somehow received during the first Reagan administration. But I still skim. Why? dunno

 

[Sam_92]

I am a bad brewer that transfers everything to the fermenter. I don't use any finings and my beers drop crystal clear on the bottle. I'm the words of my brewing forefathers "everything works if you let it.'"

 

[jambop]

I asked a very experience brewer the same question the other day and he said he skimmed although he never gave a reason but I will ask him. I have not been skimming but what I do notice is using a Grainfather S40 with a bazooka type hop filter on the tap something really good happens. I use a Grainfather wort paddle fitted to my battery powered drill when chilling the wort it really helps getting a quick chill. This results in a whirlpool effect. I leave the cooled wort in the tank for about half an hour before transferring to the FV and because the hop cones drop onto the bottom of the tank first all the other crap is filtered off through the bed of hop cones. The wort comes through the tap almost crystal clear... another great reason to use cone hops rather than pellets

 

[monkeymath]

As the wort heats up in my Grainfather, some nasty grain particulate floats to the top. I try and skim most of that off because I fear those might release lipid acids during the boil which then accelerate staling. But I haven't tested that.
The hot break per se is usually not that dramatic in my kettle and therefore stays in.

 

[Brewbuzzard]

I skim. It helps prevent boil overs and it just looks like something I don't want in my beer.

 

[McMullan]

I used to, but after sparging and FWH I fit the lid with ventilation pipe then walk away until next hop addition, which is usually at 30 min. I do skim AG starter worts when they reach the boil, though.

Yeah i heard it leaving it in makes for clearer beer

It can help the beer go bright sooner by interacting with flocculating yeast cells, producing floccs with a greater mass therefore drop out at a higher rate. It contains some yeast nutrients as well. I think the main reasons commercial brewers minimise kettle trub is to avoid blocked pipework and harvest slurry with a greater proportion of yeast. In the early days of my brewing journey I kind of liked how it filled the dead space in the bottom of my FVs, but after changing my process less wort solids suits me better.

 

[jamied]

Mmmmm... never thought about skimming the surface sludge... I’ll try it...

 

[superiorsat]

No skim. I like bold beers and figure I paid full price for the grain and want every bit of flavor it has to offer. I gelatin every beer except Neipa"s or historic hazy beers so clear is not an issue.

 

[MHBT]

No skim. I like bold beers and figure I paid full price for the grain and want every bit of flavor it has to offer. I gelatin every beer except Neipa"s or historic hazy beers so clear is not an issue.

Im pretty certain skimming vs not skimming is not gonna impact the boldness of the beer, thats recipe, non skimmed from what i heard produces clearer beer, skimmed beer produces more stable longer shelf life beer and less trub in fermenter

 

[An Ankoù]

I presume it's the stuff that floats to the top just as the kettle's coming to the boil. I never realised that was hot break. Mine looks like curds roiling around in the clear wort while it's boiling. I don't know how you'd skim that out. Doesn't it all settle down with the trub as the beer cools and mostly gets left behind in the kettle.

As an aside, I recently got a conical fermenter and thought that once I'd removed the hop bags, I'd tip everything, trub and all, into the fermenter and let it stand for an hour or so and then purge the cone of the trub before pitching the yeast. Has anyone tried this?

 

[Spartan1979]

I skim. I'm standing there waiting anyways for the boil to begin, so I might as well. Does it help? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

 

[superiorsat]

thats recipe, non skimmed from what i heard produces clearer beer, skimmed beer produces more stable longer shelf life beer and less trub in fermenter

Yeah my recipes are bold. Guess I should have put a wink emoji after the paid full price statement. I do Irish moss at the end of boil aka leaving the hot break and boil hops behind when transferring to the fermenter and gelatin as I said so pretty sure I'm getting everything out of the beer that would shorten shelf life. There may be something to skimming but you wont get all the proteins just from skimming the top IMO. It would surely shorten the time when the protein goes back into solution as there would be less of it to contend with. A long time ago there was similar threads on here and I just decided I drink my beer so quick anyway and it is all kegged so shelf life really wasn't going to be an issue.

 

[Yesfan]

I don't skim. Not against skimming, I just never thought about doing it. Seems I've read, not skimming helps with clarity, so who knows. I use whirlfloc so for all I know maybe not skimming aids or maybe it's the whirlfloc that's doing all the clearing.

 

[Dland]

I always figured the pre-boil foam that one would skim is mostly proteins that come out in hot break anyway, and whirlpooling the trub cone leaves most of this behind in BK, in my rig anyway, so skimming seems an unnecesary step. Also, I often do "first wort" hop addition, and don't want to waste that.

I presume it's the stuff that floats to the top just as the kettle's coming to the boil. I never realised that was hot break. Mine looks like curds roiling around in the clear wort while it's boiling. I don't know how you'd skim that out. Doesn't it all settle down with the trub as the beer cools and mostly gets left behind in the kettle.

As an aside, I recently got a conical fermenter and thought that once I'd removed the hop bags, I'd tip everything, trub and all, into the fermenter and let it stand for an hour or so and then purge the cone of the trub before pitching the yeast. Has anyone tried this?

While it would work to use conical bottom dump to get rid of hot break & most of hops, you'd probably sacrifice a noticeable amount of wort to do a thorough job of it.

 

[McMullan]

I feel like I want to clarify a few points here, because some of us (including me) have deviated from the OP's specific question about skimming the initial hot break that makes it to the surface, to the wort-air interface. I'm on a roll here I think if you need to reduce the chance of a boil over and insist on the clearest wort possible, and you have the time to skim, go for it. I get wort clear enough for me by adding Irish moss @10min  and letting things (kettle trub) settle for at least an hour post chill. In my experience, it doesn't make much difference apart from potentially affecting downstream processes. For example, a very trubby FV wort probably benefits more from a secondary, if the end product needs to be ready to serve sooner. And a clearer wort helps to predict what volume/weight harvested yeast slurry is optimal (for you) to repitch. It kind of depends on how we do things and what our individual expectations are. It's not really about what's right or wrong. More about what works for us, as individual brewers.

 

[hotbeer]

No choice for "sometimes"?

 

[seatazzz]

No choice for "sometimes"?

I'll go with that. Just depends on the day. Bigger grain bills in my system tend to have more hot break, and sometimes I just feel like grabbing my wire sieve and getting it out of there. Other times I'm busy doing other things, and I let it go. Doesn't seem to affect the clarity or shelf life of my beers. Less hot break=less scrubbing the sides of the BK too so there's that.

 

[rock_n_herm]

I do not skim, though I am not terribly concerned about crystal clear beer. That foam belongs to the wort, so in the wort it stays.

Just recently, I began adding Irish moss into the boil. My stout was the first beer to which I added Irish moss, and it is as clear as a stout can be. The other 2 beers to which I added Irish moss are still fermenting, so we’ll see what they look like when they’re ready.

 

[faithie999]

I boil on my outside deck which I am able to hose down after the boil is complete. so, I allow the hot break to boil over and spill onto the deck. I've noticed that the hot break foam is more dense and slightly brownish so that's what I allow to boil over. the "other" foam is white and much less dense so I don't allow that to boil over. I have a Blichman burner and I can adjust the heat input to control how much foam boils over.

 

[MikeCo]

I usually skim because the stuff looks kinda nasty. But the times when I don’t skim, I don’t see any bad effects.

 

[MicroMickey]

I got tired of boil overs and started skimming the foam from the top of the kettle as it formed. I had less incidence and thought I'd cured the problem. After about two batches of beer, I quickly noticed that my brews didn't have that whipped cream head I had taken so much pride in.

After reading just a bit, I found that the components of that initial foam are what makes for a full head of foam.

 

[superiorsat]

I got tired of boil overs and started skimming the foam from the top of the kettle as it formed. I had less incidence and thought I'd cured the problem. After about two batches of beer, I quickly noticed that my brews didn't have that whipped cream head I had taken so much pride in.

After reading just a bit, I found that the components of that initial foam are what makes for a full head of foam.

Any reference on that reading material? I had suspected that might be the case. I always thought when a stout was coming to a boil that the initial foam was a great indicator of what the head on the beer would look like. It matches up pretty much spot on.

 

[bracconiere]

wait, i don't know how to answer...

do boil overs count as skimming? usually i try and stir it in if i'm watching when it's starting to boil...other times, it just want to hop out of the pot?

is that a yes or no?

 

[MicroMickey]

https://crescentcitybrewtalk.com/head-on-beer/
Here's one reference I used to figure out what I did wrong.

 

[MHBT]

https://crescentcitybrewtalk.com/head-on-beer/
Here's one reference I used to figure out what I did wrong.

Never had a problem with head retention from skimming

 

[bracconiere]

Never had a problem with head retention from skimming

for some reason, i thought that as head above the water while swimming.....


but, i did just have a thought about yeast harvesting? skimming might help get a better yeast cake to harvest?

 

[crazyjake19]

Never skim, and everything but the last bit of solid trub goes into the fermenter. Never had any adverse affect for me, and my beers are brilliantly clear (when desired).

 

[hogman]

Brulosophy recently reported on an experiment they did--split the wort before the boil. Skimmed half and didn't skim the other. The results of their three way blind tests was the tasters could not tell the difference. After fermentation clarity was the same. So, it doesn't matter if you do or if you don't.

 

[MicroMickey]

There are components in that mess you're skimming like free amino acids which the yeast needs just a little bit later during fermentation. Go ahead and skim . . . you'll find out.

 

[MHBT]

There are components in that mess you're skimming like free amino acids which the yeast needs just a little bit later during fermentation. Go ahead and skim . . . you'll find out.

brewed a 1080 stout 3 days ago with what i thought was compromised yeast from hot shipping , skimmed the HB, its almost at FG 1080 to 1020 in 3 days is pretty good and a good indication of healthy yeast 3 more days should be fully done,the yeast did not suffer at all idk what i will find out, i think i would have already after many skimmed batches, at the end of the day im starting to believe it doesn’t matter skimmed or not skimmed but to say skimming will cause problems is just not true

 

[danielthemaniel]

This is one of those things that brewers have a preference on but I'm reality doesn't make a bit of difference in the beer. Do what your gut says, screw it!

 

[bwible]

I skim the heavy white stuff that forms right after the boil starts before I add the first hop addition. You’ll never get it all. As soon as you get most of it more starts forming.