Efficiency Issue?

[acommonsoul]

Ok, so this is only my 3rd batch of home-brew. I did an extract kit and only ended up with a little less than 4 gallons? Before fermentation, I made sure it was at 5 gallons before adding the yeast. Is this normal to lose so much with fermentation? What is a better solution to ensure I actually end up with 5 gallons at the end of fermentation? Any advice helps...thanks

 

[JLeuck64]

Yes I think I know what you are struggling with. It's technically not an efficiency issue but more of an effect from all the crud that is floating around during the boil. There is a ton of hops that settle out. Hot break is another term that gets thrown around, you probably noticed all of it circulating around during the boil at some point on brew day. All of this crud settles out during fermentation and effectively takes away from what you can siphon out of the fermenter.

As you brew more and more you can adjust for this type of loss by increasing the volume to offset it. As you siphon you beer off the trub more and more you will also get better at removing more beer ( ;

I started tipping my fermenters early on trying to extract as much beer as I could. Some times I would suck up a bunch of trub but after a while I got pretty good at stopping just before the trub started to get pulled into the siphon.

As I continued to buy new equipment I noticed that it became easier to leave all of that crud in the boil kettle. The biggest step came when I purchased my first boil kettle with a drain valve in it. It was no longer necessary to dump the entire contents of the boil kettle through the strainer into the fermentor. At first I would dunk the immersion chiller into the kettle and cool the wort down, then drain into the fermentor. the drain might get plugged up from time to time but it worked so I kept using it. Then I found this thread on building a counter flow chiller and I built one. Now I could get a nice whirlpool going after flame out by stirring it with a big spoon. You simply let it continue to swirl for 10 or 15 minutes then drain it through a counter flow chiller and then pitch in your yeast. Easy peasy and the trub is next to nothing, mostly just a big yeast cake now! You can use that yeast cake to make more beer too ( ;

 

[acommonsoul]

Thanks for the reply. That clears up a lot for me... I do have a nice Spike brew kettle, but I didn't whirlpool long enough and I forgot to run it through my strainer this time... Oops... I do have an immersion wort chiller that works pretty good... I also am getting clear beer thanks to Whirlock tablets and I siphon through a mess bag from primary to secondary.... I think the whirlpool is the main missing part... That and the fact I forgot the strainer... Next time I'll make sure to do both and I'll add extra water to compensate for the loss

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the reply. That clears up a lot for me... I do have a nice Spike brew kettle, but I didn't whirlpool long enough and I forgot to run it through my strainer this time... Oops... I do have an immersion wort chiller that works pretty good... I also am getting clear beer thanks to Whirlock tablets and I siphon through a mess bag from primary to secondary.... I think the whirlpool is the main missing part... That and the fact I forgot the strainer... Next time I'll make sure to do both and I'll add extra water to compensate for the loss

I'd say to forget the whirlpool and the strainer. Dump everything into the fermenter. Anything you leave behind in the boil pot is just wasted potential beer. Besides, the yeast seem to like the trub and that can lead to clearer beer.

Given time in the fermenter, the trub will all settle out and compact (some yeast work better for this) down so you can rack off the trub to the bottling bucket without getting much trub and even that won't matter as it settles out in the bottling bucket quickly. I don't use whilrlflock and I still get clear beer.

 

[rcreamer0713]

Muslin sacks for hops. Mesh bags for ur grains. Muslin sacks for hops saved me a ton. Just throwing hops in made such a mess