A Technique for Clearer Wort going into the Fermenter

[Tippsy-Turvy]

I just completed an experiment that aims to filter the trub out of the cooled wort before it goes into the fermenter without clogging the strainer/filter at the fermenter mouth. The reason I had to come up with this technique was I still can’t whirlpool effectively .

The result was zero lumps of trub going into the fermenter and only very few traces of material in the strainer. Only fine cloudy stuff got into the fermenter which I’m guessing is the cold break, yeast and fine hop powder from the pellets.

Essentially, once the cooled wort had been given 30mins to settle, I placed a steel colander into a nylon grain bag and slowly lowered it into the kettle. The steel colander needs to be just small enough to fit into the kettle. The kettle was then allowed to settle for a further 20mins.

I believe the key here is the weight of the colander made it act as a press that lightly but continually squeezed the clearer beer through the filter into the colander without letting in any larger material. The “filtered” beer in the colander would also settle further before being siphoned from the centre of the colander. Some trubby wort did get pushed up the sides between the kettle and the bag but as the level of wort fell from the siphoning, clearer beer would also filter through from the sides (although didn't contribute too much).

Here it is in pictures.

The wort in the kettle after cooling and settling for 30mins:


Lowering the sanitized colander and filter bag into the kettle (slowly):


Colander at bottom of kettle and clearish beer entering the kettle centre:


After syphoning, the beer left at bottom is still clear of any large material:


This is the only material on the strainer at the mouth of the fermenter!

 

[shepditch]

I feel your pain. My whirlpool and wait system never seems to result in that pretty cone I keep hearing about. I've pretty much given myself over to the "dump it all in the fermenter and let it settle out" crowd. It's either that or just scale up my batch and leave more volume in the kettle. Beersmith calculations get all sorts of weird about that though - Don't get anyone started on that "bug"...

Are you losing more volume to this method than you would have without? How much?

Have you finished out a beer with this method to compare to one without? Think it makes an actual difference to the clarity of the final product?

I'm willing to make the effort to clarify wort to the fermenter if someone can show me it results in clearer beer. Otherwise it feels like a lot of effort for very little change in the final product...

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

Unfortunately, I don't think this will give you clearer end product (unless you typically bottle a lot of trub). The single best solution I've encountered for clear bottled beer is fridge conditioning for a couple of weeks - not irish moss, hot/cold break, gelatin etc although I routinely use irish moss and get the hot/cold breaks.

To be precise, the aims of this method are to reduce wastage on bottling day by minimizing the layer of trub at the bottom of the fermenter and to keep any volatile adjuncts out of the fermenter.

The volume of wort going into the fermenter from this technique was probably not much larger than what I usually get BUT the quality was better (ie freer of material). Hopefully, this should mean more bottled beer which I'll discover soon enough.

Funny how I thought I was the only one who couldn't achieve the cone of material from whirlpooling! I'd also resorted to just making larger batches and accepting larger wastage. However, I don't have any problems with my calculations using Brewer's Friend. There I can enter my target batch size which is the volume determinant of the OG and whatever volume I put into my fermenter is irrelevant to OG. My achieved OG's are almost always within +/-0.001 of target.