Appearance question - Too much trub and solids

[bobbrews]

I recently created and brewed this beer:

http://hopville.com/recipe/486685/american-ipa-recipes/dry-hopped-citramarillo-ipa

I'm 2 days into fermentation and everything is going great. Huge krausen and tons of yeast cells from my starter. My question involves the high amount of trub "before and during" the fermentation process. I used every precaution to limit the amount of solids in the wort but it seems like none of that mattered. Will the beer continue to clarify as the trub settles and fermentation ends?

Also, I used 5 gallon nylon mesh paint strainer bags for my grains and for my hops. Since I didn't have hop bags, I tied the larger bag to my kettle handle and tossed the hops in at each addition. Upon chilling the wort, I strained and removed the hops in the bag. Was I supposed to leave the boiling hops in the primary fermenter?

In approximately 8 days, I'm going to toss in 1.50 oz. of dry pellet hops. Should I add them directly, or encase them in a paint strainer bag?

My prime goal here is to have a clear, solid free beer. I'm content that everything else will be fine, but the appearance right now bothers me. I don't feel that carefully siphoning from the middle of the primary will totally rid solid particles upon bottling.

 

[NyPDFustercluck]

There are several things you can do to help clarity, namely time, temperature (aging at cold temperature will help solids precipitate out), racking to a secondary, or some people dissolve gelatin into their beer in the fermenter a few days before racking. As for your dry hops, toss a few marbles In with the hops in your mesh bag to make it not float on the top of your wort. Hope this helps, there's lots of threads that discuss in detail the differing remedies I just brought up

 

[Malintent]

Yes, it will continue to clear. No, you were not supposed to keep the used hops. While it is trure that there are things that can potentially improve your beer clarity, the FIRST thing to do is nothing at all. If after completing fermentation, when all that trub and krausen falls to the bottom, you wait another week or so and are still unhappy with the clarity, then consider taking action. The "during and before" is very messy, trub-wise... that is normal.

 

[RM-MN]

First thing, relax. The first thing yeast does is have an orgy, reproducing as fast as possible and using up the oxygen. Then they have a great feast, eating the sugars as fast as they can and giving off, among a bunch of less desirable things, alcohol and CO2. While this is going on, the wort will be churning away, mixing in the yeast, hops, and any loose protein "break" material. After the free sugar is gone, the yeast activity will slow down as they clean up the aforementioned less desirable things. One of the first things to settle will be the hops and break material followed by the spent yeast which will form a nice cream colored layer at the bottom of the fermenter. As time goes on, more stuff will settle until you are left with nice clear beer.

If you dry hop in a bag, you won't have to wait for the hops to settle. It might be better if you waited more than 8 days to do so. You want all the ferment done first and then you want them in the beer for a limited amount of time before you bottle or keg. Give the yeast another 2 to 4 weeks before adding the hops.

 

[Revvy]

Then leave your beer in primary for a month....

This is my yeastcake for my Sri Lankin Stout that sat in primary for 5 weeks. Notice how tight the yeast cake is? None of that got racked over to my bottling bucket. And the beer is extremely clear.

That little bit of beer to the right is all of the 5 gallons that DIDN'T get vaccumed off the surface of the tight trub. When I put 5 gallons in my fermenter, I tend to get 5 gallons into bottles. The cake itself is like cement, it's about an inch thick and very, very dense, you can't just tilt your bucket and have it fall out. I had to use water pressure to get it to come out.

Ths is the last little bit of the same beer in the bottling bucket, this is the only sediment that made it though and that was done on purpose, when I rack I always make sure to rub the autosiphon across the bottom of the primary to make sure there's plenty of yeast in suspension to carb the beer, but my bottles are all crystal clear and have little sediment in them.

Half the time I forget to use moss, and you can't tell the difference in clarity.

Another thing is to leave your beer in the fridge for at least a week. The longer you chill the beer in the fridge, the tighter the yeast cake. I had a beer in the back of my fridge for 3 months, that I could completely upend and no yeast came out. Longer in the cold the tighter the yeast cake becomes. Even just chilling for a week (besides getting rid of chill haze) will go to great lengths to allow you to leave the yeast behind, but with only a minimum amount of beer.

The only filtering I've ever done has been through my kidneys.

I get the barest hint of sediment in my bottles....just enough for the yeast to have done the job of carbonating the beer.

 

[BendBrewer]

How did you get your wort from your kettle into your fermenter?

 

[bobbrews]

Thanks everyone for the tips. To answer the last question, I siphoned it from the kettle to the bottling bucket through two layers of sanitized nylon mesh bags wrapped around the bucket. Afterward, I passed the wort again from the bottling bucket to the primary carboy through a sanitized mesh sieve. I told you I was really paranoid. Despite doing all of this there were still a ton of solids visible in the primary.

 

[rexbanner]

Thanks everyone for the tips. To answer the last question, I siphoned it from the kettle to the bottling bucket through two layers of sanitized nylon mesh bags wrapped around the bucket. Afterward, I passed the wort again from the bottling bucket to the primary carboy through a sanitized mesh sieve. I told you I was really paranoid. Despite doing all of this there were still a ton of solids visible in the primary.

I do BIAB, which leaves a ton of stuff floating in the beer. All that stuff will be gone in the end. It's way heavier than yeast, and yeast settles out just fine.

Just make sure you leave your beer in primary for at least 3 weeks.

 

[bobbrews]

Justmake sure you leave your beer in primary for at least 3 weeks.

I was going to leave it in the primary for 4 weeks and add the dryhops in the middle at 2 weeks. No secondary, just straight to the bottle for another 2-3 weeks of conditioning.

 

[flabyboy]

I was going to leave it in the primary for 4 weeks and add the dryhops in the middle at 2 weeks. No secondary, just straight to the bottle for another 2-3 weeks of conditioning.

I would maybe just dry hop for 7-10 days instead of 2 weeks. You could always cold crash it the last 2 days before bottling. It works really well at getting it extra clear

 

[JonK331]

I would maybe just dry hop for 7-10 days instead of 2 weeks. You could always cold crash it the last 2 days before bottling. It works really well at getting it extra clear

Yeah I agree, no benefit to dry hopping that long. And yes if you can cold crash, do it. You can do it in a cooler filled with ice if you don't have anything else.

 

[bobbrews]

You're right. I don't know why I wrote that. I guess I was thinking 2 weeks was 10 days. How about 28 days in the primary with the dry hops added on the 18th day?