3 gallons of break?!

[Trail]

I brewed the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale 2013 recipe from elsewhere on these forums. Brew day went OK (other than a toe sprain which occurred for reasons too ****ing stupid to recount) but at the end of the day, I got a hair under 4 gallons into my fermenter... from a 5.5 gallon batch.

The hop bill looks like this, adjusted for alpha acids:

60 minutes Target 1oz (Pellet)
15 Minutes Cascade 1.30oz (Cone)
15 Minutes Centennial 1oz (Pellet)
0 minutes Cascade 1.5oz (Cone)
0 minutes Centennial 1oz (Pellet)

I used Whirlfloc as usual, but the trub was unlike anything I have ever seen. Worse, my siphon kept clogging from hop material... I cleared it out by hand using my thermometer probe no less than seven times.

What went wrong? How did I end up with such a crazy amount of break material? Should I stick to pellet hops from now on?

Man.

 

[day_trippr]

hops /= "break material"
That comes from grains.
It sounds like the loose hops were plugging up the plumbing causing you to toss a lot of wort.
Maybe look into hop-containment techniques before the next brew...

Cheers!

 

[Trail]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1500845820.604260.jpgNot sure how much it would have helped... see this photo I snapped about 15 minutes before I gave up and pitched. There's a lot of hop wastage, but the amount of break is insane nonetheless.

 

[IslandLizard]

Wouldn't 5.5 gallon batch - 4 gallons in fermentor make it 1.5 gallons of trub (break)?

Whole hop flowers absorb more wort than pellets, but you'd still have a fair amount of trub, probably 3 quarts at least.

Now you could 1) pour the wort through a strainer, to catch some break and most hops, 2) use a hop spider, hop basket, or hop bags to contain the hops but not the break, or 3) after transfer strain the leftover trubby wort (in a sanitary way) and add to your fermentor.

I've strained leftover trubby wort like yours through a well sanitized, large fine mesh hop bag placed in a large funnel, giving it a gentle squeeze toward the end. Then raised the temp of the captured wort to 165F to re-pasteurize. After cooling added it to the fermentor. Then I had my 5.5 gallons, as promised!

 

[IslandLizard]

Oh, tipping your kettle toward the end of the siphon will help transfer more clear wort.

 

[Trail]

Wouldn't 5.5 gallon batch - 4 gallons in fermentor make it 1.5 gallons of trub (break)?

I'm guesstimating how much I got into the fermenter - my Better Bottle isn't marked, which maybe I should look into.

I have my Beersmith set up to estimate batch size into keg, so each step assumes some losses. I think I have it configured to assume half a gallon of break/hop sludge/??? from the boil, and another half gallon of cake at the bottom of the fermenter. I'd much rather have too much to fill a keg, and maybe get a couple of bombers bottled for gifting at the end, than leave my keg half full!

In this case, you can see the markings in the photo... there were three full gallons at that point, and I don't think I got it under 2.5 before the sludge was so thick and full of hop petals that I couldn't siphon anymore.

I've strained leftover trubby wort like yours through a well sanitized, large fine mesh hop bag placed in a large funnel, giving it a gentle squeeze toward the end. Then raised the temp of the captured wort to 165F to re-pasteurize. After cooling added it to the fermentor. Then I had my 5.5 gallons, as promised!

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to try this (or a sufficiently large funnel) but by that point it had been a really long brewday and I was growing increasingly frustrated and imprecise. I tried blowing into the kettle's spigot to unblock it, realized how badly I could infect it in the process, and decided to shut it all down before I took myself from Not Enough Good Beer all the way to All The Gallons Of Bad Beer.

Oh, tipping your kettle toward the end of the siphon will help transfer more clear wort.

Yeah, tried that too. The volume this time was just bloody massive.

I'm going to buy a food grade funnel for next time and keep some paint strainer bags on hand. Thanks for the advice.