Whirlfloc & whirlpooling tips

[Jhedrick83]

I just used Whirlfloc for the first time and I had a couple questions.

1. I dropped in the appropriate amount with 15 minutes left in the boil. I whirlpooled as best I could before I put it in the ice bath to cool off. I figured the time it took to chill would be about as long as I may need for the whirlpool to do its thing. When I got down to temp I opened up the kettle and a ton had settled down but I had a good deal of floating matter too. So I let it sit for another 10 minutes and it never quit floating. So I just put it all (other than the bottom sediment) into the Primary. I probably should have taken a pic.. So, is that how it is supposed to be or did I jack it up? I assume the floaters will settle out during fermentation.

2. I'm doing smallish batches. This was a 2 gallon brew and the kettle has a dip tube for the ball valve drain (SS Brewtech 5.5 gal). That dip tube makes whirl pooling with a spoon/paddle difficult. It's hard to get a good spin going while working around not banging into the dip tube each time. Any tips?

 

[tracer bullet]

Whirlpool helps get stuff out before it goes in the fermenter. As such, not being required, do what you can and don't worry about it after that.

#2, raise your paddle some. Not kidding. Alternately you could use a pump setup but probably not worth the effort.

This is the "relax, dont' worry, have a homebrew" moment. There are indeed things you can mess up, but for this stuff don't worry about getting it just right.

 

[Jhedrick83]

Whirlpool helps get stuff out before it goes in the fermenter. As such, not being required, do what you can and don't worry about it after that.

#2, raise your paddle some. Not kidding. Alternately you could use a pump setup but probably not worth the effort.

This is the "relax, dont' worry, have a homebrew" moment. There are indeed things you can mess up, but for this stuff don't worry about getting it just right.

I would raise the paddle some but then I hit the plug for the thermometer port that's too high for me to use! Maybe I need a smaller paddle...

Having never used it before, I guess I was just expecting a neater pile of sediment.

 

[Dland]

The Whirlflock should help cold break proteins settle out of beer even if they wind up in bottom of fermentor, resulting in clearer finished beer.

 

[McKnuckle]

I'm going to be cynical for a moment based on my own experience, which seems to vary from what other people talk about. I have never, ever gotten a successful trub cone from a whirlpool. It always spreads out, and always approaches the kettle drain. It's probably my fault in that I hate wasting wort, so I push it... then end up collecting everything.

The Whirlfloc did its job - it created all of that wild looking fluffy floating stuff that wasn't in the beer before (Did you see it before the boil? Nope...). So that's pretty cool. But it's nearly impossible to prevent it from leaving the kettle. If we had a bed of leaf hops, we could use that as a filter bed and contain it, but usually we don't.

You can absolutely rack it to the fermenter and not worry about it at all.

But what I do is to rack from the kettle into a temporary settling vessel (usually a 3 gallon Fermonster). I chill that for a while til the cold break settles out. Then I rack only the clear wort on top into the fermenter. I have done this many times, and the amount of discarded liquid is about 0.62 l/kg based on the recipe's grain bill. The unrecoverable clear wort lost is miniscule - like 1/4 cup. I've let the trub settle further after racking to validate that. (see pic)

So there you go. Whirlpool hard. Trub okay. Other ways to remove trub.

 

[Immocles]

I've never noticed whirlfloc helping any sediment while the wort is chilling. I try to remember to use it every batch, but probably forget every ten beers or so. It really makes a difference during the fermentation, though. In my observation, you can see everything sort of clumping up and combining, then dropping out instead of staying in suspension.

 

[Jhedrick83]

I'm going to be cynical for a moment based on my own experience, which seems to vary from what other people talk about. I have never, ever gotten a successful trub cone from a whirlpool. It always spreads out, and always approaches the kettle drain. It's probably my fault in that I hate wasting wort, so I push it... then end up collecting everything.

The Whirlfloc did its job - it created all of that wild looking fluffy floating stuff that wasn't in the beer before (Did you see it before the boil? Nope...). So that's pretty cool. But it's nearly impossible to prevent it from leaving the kettle. If we had a bed of leaf hops, we could use that as a filter bed and contain it, but usually we don't.

You can absolutely rack it to the fermenter and not worry about it at all.

But what I do is to rack from the kettle into a temporary settling vessel (usually a 3 gallon Fermonster). I chill that for a while til the cold break settles out. Then I rack only the clear wort on top into the fermenter. I have done this many times, and the amount of discarded liquid is about 0.62 l/kg based on the recipe's grain bill. The unrecoverable clear wort lost is miniscule - like 1/4 cup. I've let the trub settle further after racking to validate that. (see pic)

So there you go. Whirlpool hard. Trub okay. Other ways to remove trub.

I’m guessing that when you do that, you don’t pitch until after transfer out the clear wort. Right? Do you just keep your chilled wort at room temp until it settles?

 

[McKnuckle]

Chill down to 80-90°, fill the settling vessel with no splashing, put in fridge or cold garage. When settled wort reaches pitching temp, rack clear portion to fermenter, splash/aerate, and pitch yeast.