Filtering after boil

[murppie]

So question for the HBT Brain Trust here. When I'm brewing, after my boil and ice bath its time to pour said future deliciousness into the carboy. So when I'm pouring from my pot through the funnel I use a little mesh filter (I used to have this awesome fine metal strainer that I can't find anymore) but my question for you guys is, as I'm pouring the trub eventually clogs to the point where no liquid is getting through. My go to move has been to wash my hands, then dip them into the StarSan, then use my fingers to stir the junk away and let more liquid through.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of this because it seems like its prime time for infection, but I've not had any bad batches (knock on wood) in 8+ years. What do the rest of you do when you're transferring?

 

[flars]

I pour into a bucket with a fine mesh bag to hold the hop debris and breaks material. Can pour solo now and no slop on the floor.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Not to touch off another brulosophy debate, but one of the exBeeriments they've done that I found compelling was trub vs no-trub:

http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/
http://brulosophy.com/2015/03/22/the-impact-of-kettle-trub-part-2-exbeeriment-results/

Essentially the takeaway, and I have seen nothing that suggest this is incorrect, is that getting a fair amount of trub / break material / hops / etc into your fermenter is at worst neutral, and perhaps may have some benefits to clarity.

So if I were you, I'd probably worry less about it than you are currently.

That said, for your question, something like this might help. Set that inside the top of the funnel. If it gets clogged to the point that liquid isn't really moving through, dump the strainer into the sink and put it back as-is. Since it's got a handle, you don't need to touch the area that will need to remain sanitary.

 

[jalc6927]

I heard same brulosophy test and don't worry about that trub as much

I do use Muslin bags for hops and other additions to lower the amount of residue though

 

[LickingGoatBrothersBrewin]

We filtered last weekend through a cloth. It was a nightmare. We ended up switching over to our brew bag. That was also a nightmare. Wasted 1 hour trying to keep the liquid flowing. We brewed a heavy Bockbier and it had a lot of cold break and other Proteins, so we had a very thick sludge of a kettle trub...think mud.

While our wort was chilling in the fridge I spent the night reading every article, blog, and forum post, and listening to every podcast I could find about kettle trub effects:
It seems the overall consensus has shifted over the past few years, and as mentioned above filtering is proving to be at best a neutral process step for home brewing.
Needless to say, our next brew will not be filtered.

There is still evidence that bigger Brewers should filter the trub because it can have negative impacts on shelf life. But for homebrewers, the beer tends to be consumed rather quickly, and therefore shelf life isn't as big of a concern for the average homebrewer.

I look forward to seeing if our next (unfiltered) beer comes out clearer.

 

[madscientist451]

I used to let the kettle sit for a while with the lid on and carefully siphon off the clear wort.
But now I just put a funnel in the carboy and dump most of it in. I still toss out some of the thickest sludge at the bottom, but I've found that the trub doesn't hurt anything, it all settles out during fermentation/cold crashing.

 

[eric19312]

I tried all sorts of things to strain wort on way into fermentor, some worked well, others PITA. Now I really don’t sweat it, I guess mainly due to brulosophy’s experiments giving me courage to just let it in. I have started recently using the support ring that came with my NorCal jaybird false bottom as a trub trapper in my boil kettle and it does a nice job keeping some of the pellet hop gunk out of fermentor for no extra work or money so I do do that now.

 

[cchart]

Got to your local DIY store and by mesh paint filters for spray guns. That's what I use without issue. I tie it off on the side of my ffermenter and place the house inside the filter. The filters are big enough for the trub to land at the bottom of the bag while the beer flows around it. Then rinse and re-use. Cheap and great solution and they work flawlessly. I should also point out that I have a steel tube filter at the bottom of my boil kettle that helps keep the really big stuff out. The paint filter catches the rest of it.