2nd All Grain - Cold Break?

[smoothlarryhughes]

I did my second all grain brew today...everything went well. This is an austin home brew bavarian hefeweizen. I just have a question about what is settling in my fermenter about 6 hours after I poured in the wort and pitched the yeast. Is this cold break settling out? I used a hop bag in the boil, and poured the wort through a paint strainer...Is this normal?

 

[NoCornOrRice]

yes, it is ickiness (proteins, hops, etc) settling out of the brew, normal and nothing to worry about

 

[tasq]

yes, it is ickiness (proteins, hops, etc) settling out of the brew, normal and nothing to worry about

Yep! Normal.

 

[remilard]

That's many times the volume of the cold break you are likely to have. If you dumped the wort into the fermenter it is mostly hot break and hop material (some escapes the bag).

 

[rshosted]

I've had ferements that look like that. I've found that I can substantially reduce what you have pictured by doing a few things.

1. make sure you use a good chiller to get the temp down below 70* (as quickly as possible).

2. once cooled, I stir like a madman for about 30-60 seconds. I'm trying to get a good 'funnel' going.

3. pull my spoon out, put a lid on it for 15 minutes.

4. then when racking out, I VERY gently put my autosiphon in to a corner of the pot and siphon out. As soon as I see cloudy in the racking cane I pull it out. I usually give up a little more than I like but I've found you're gonna' give it up either way. This just makes a cleaner looking carboy.

The vortex created will create a "trub cone" (not sure why I quoted myself there...???). You can see loose hops, proteins, and crap sitting in the middle when the wort gets siphoned out. It's kind of cool.

I've also been able to tell which clarifiers compact better by looking at this trub cone. I'm still using irish moss after several experiments, FWIW.

hope that helps.

 

[El_Exorcisto]

When you pour or siphon your pot into your fermenter, as soon as you see trub in the flowing wort, stop. You lose it here or lose it at bottling. If you lose it here, you have a much better ability to harvest yeast.

 

[jmf143]

The vortex created will create a "trub cone" (not sure why I quoted myself there...???).

Its all good - I sometimes use "air quotes" when I'm speaking.