Accidental Experiment with Trub and Krausen

[LoudounBrew]

I brew 10 gallon batches. On Sunday's brew, the trub really settled out. So when I went to drain the wort into my two carboys, the first carboy was filled with beautifully clear wort. But the second carboy was a murky mess, getting pretty much all of the wort at the bottom of the kettle.

Anyway, I hit both carboys with hydrated Nottingham and put them at 62 degrees.

Well, it's two days later and the carboy with the trub has a krausen about twice as high as the carboy with the clear wort. In addition, the trub carboy started bubbling about four to six hours earlier than the clear wort carboy.

What does this mean? Don't know. I'm guessing that the trub has some nutrients for the yeast, but I could be wrong. I've read before that a little bit of trub is good for fermentation.

I don't know if it will make any difference in the taste, but I figured that it might be interesting information for everyone.

 

[PhelanKA7]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/whirfloc-always-scares-crap-out-me-382777/

Don't fear the trub. It won't hurt anything as long as you do a good cold crash at the end of fermentation and it doesn't get into your bottles/kegs.

 

[erikpete18]

The krausen is probably because all that trub is really just protein, and a little protein will go a long way in making a nice thick krausen. Not sure why the fermentation would start any faster, but you're right, it might be healthier. What I'll be curious to see is if after everything is said and done, assuming that you're planning on packaging them separately, if you can pick out which batch is which, and which one tastes better to you. I could see the extra protein in the trub potentially helping head retention, and if the ferment is actually faster, producing a cleaner beer in the end. Of course that's just speculation, let us know how it turns out in a month or two!

 

[mkeckjr]

My guess is that you have a lot less fermentable sugars in the second carboy due to having so much trub in it, and since you pitched the same amount of yeast into both, you have more yeast cells per milliliter of wort in the second carboy. This can commonly lead to a much shorter lag time and quicker fermentation, which is why yeast starters are made.

 

[LoudounBrew]

erikpete,

I'll be putting each carboy into its own keg, so I should be able to do a taste test, though one will be able to condition longer, so not a fair fight.

mkeckjr,

That's a very good point and definitely not one that I thought of. Maybe I need to look into yeast starters.

 

[cklages]

Please don't forget to post your results.

I'm never sure if I should worry about how much trub makes it into my fermenter, this sounds like a great experiment...

 

[BridgewaterBrewer]

Any results?