What to do with the trub/sludge post-boil

[UltraHighABV]

I just finished brewing a nice hefe, and I ended up with a perfect 5.5 gallons post-boil

I cooled it down to 68 and began pouring into my fermentor, through a coarse kitchen strainer. I got towards the bottom, and noticed the protein/trub/sludge was starting to creep in. Rather than just let the remainder rip, I pulled back, which then mixed it all, and I then decided not to put it in

I ended up with about 4.5 gallons going in my primary and 1 gallon of sick protein sludge left in my boil pot

My questions are:

should i just be pitching all of this sludge, and let it settle itself out in the fermentor? If so, I thought the purpose of fast chilling after boil was to precipitate proteins, so that they wouldn't make it into the fermentor, and this would seem to be at ends with that

What do other people do at this step? Does anyone boil down to 6.25 gallons or so, and then just not pitch in the .75-1 gallons of sludge? Maybe make up for this with an increase in the grain bill?

i'm curious, thanks!

UltraHighABV

 

[didinho]

I save the sludge in 1-2 bottles, let it settle 1-2 days in the fridge and then I take the clean upper part. I freeze it to do a starter for the following batch, I also tried to use it for priming (krausening) or even added it to the fermenting batch (after boiling it) when it was more than two liters recovered

 

[RM-MN]

The sludge won't hurt the quality of your beer and any of the liquid portion will have the sugars that the yeast use to produce alcohol. Dump it all into the fermenter, let the yeast do their thing, and then give it some time to settle out and compact and you will get most of the beer out while leaving the unwanted stuff behind.

 

[UltraHighABV]

great thanks!

 

[Jim311]

Unless you're hurting for space in that fermenter, there's no harm in putting it into the carboy. Otherwise it's wasted sugar/wort. Leave the crap in the fermenter when you go to transfer it to your bottling bucket or keg.

 

[beergolf]

Just dump it all in. It will compact down and if you rack carefully when fermentation is done you will get bery clear beer. Here is one where I dumped it all in the fermenter.

 

[slym2none]

I figure, leave everything and let the yeast figure out what they want to chew on. It surely won't hurt.

 

[tsl346]

If so, I thought the purpose of fast chilling after boil was to precipitate proteins, so that they wouldn't make it into the fermentor, and this would seem to be at ends with that

UltraHighABV

I personally filter out the bulk of it with a mesh strainer and muslim bag. Not a perfect filter but it gets the bulk of the hop junk. This is personal preference for less trub at the bottom of the fermenter so I don't have to worry about transferring to secondary or keg but I don't think essential.

You are chilling quickly to precipitate proteins that will fall out of the beer so you do not get chill haze and produce clearer beer. You are also chilling quickly to get out of the microbial "danger zone" although there are a lot of threads on here about no chill beer that have never gotten an infection. The proteins will not effect fermentation in a negative way.

 

[Jim311]

You are also chilling quickly to get out of the microbial "danger zone" although there are a lot of threads on here about no chill beer that have never gotten an infection.

I would say that's actually the most sanitary way, because you are essentially pasteurizing the product, and if you aren't chilling at all, the hot wort is going to kill any bacteria inside the carboy too. Then you just pop a top on it and wait, so there's no chance that wild yeast will make it into the kettle while you're chilling and waiting 10 or more minutes.