cold break?

[coyote]

would one of the more experienced brewers educate me on cold break?

I think I'm missing the boat....I've added whirlflock to the boil, but then transferred the whole wort into primary (after cooling, of course).

did I defeat the purpose of the whirlflock by pouring the whole contents of the boil into the primary?

extract brewing, btw. I also use hop "bags" to remove most of the pellet hops.

thanks.

 

[cubbies]

No that is not necessarily a bad thing. Whirfloc is a protein coagulator. Basically, it makes the long protein strands join up together (coagulate) and form a small mass of protein. This new mass obviously has a larger weight than the single protein strands it is comprised of, and therefore will fall out of suspension much faster and easier.

 

[Trencher]

With good cooling, Whirlfloc and careful siphoning you can leave a lot of the cold break material in your kettle - along with some of your wort. No problem if you pour the proteins into the primary along with all the wort, it just means you'll have more sediment at the bottom of the primary.
Be careful when siphoning into your clearing vessel or bottling bucket to make sure you don't bottle that stuff too.

 

[Yooper]

Also, I've read somewhere (maybe here?) that the cold break particulate is good for the yeast, kind of like nutrients for them. So, it's not a problem if they are in the fermenter. And, as the others said, it'll fall to the bottom anyway. If you get a good cold break, you can actually see it forming during the chilling. I chill my wort from boiling to pitchable in 20 minutes or so, and I get a cold break every time that is visible.

 

[TexLaw]

You have two "breaks" during the brewing. There's the "hot break," which comprises the proteins that coagulate during the boil, and there's the "cold break," which comprises the proteins that come out when you chill the wort.

Opinions vary about how critical it is to get that stuff away from the wort. I know some guys that won't tolerate a speck of kettle trub in their fermenters. I used to filter it out a bit when I used whole hops, but I quit worrying about it since switching to pellet hops years ago (although I do whirlpool a bit to minimize wort loss).

Honestly, I can't find anything off in my beer for having left those coagulated proteins in for the amount of time I have my beer in the primary. If I had, I would keep them out. I am careful about racking to the secondary, though.


TL

 

[coyote]

appreciate the replies!

Thanks!