Has anyone had this happen

zach21b · Apr 20, 2015

I am newer to brewing with 25 gallons of extract under my belt. Friday night I was brewing a Red IPA kit that I picked up at the local brew store. In the kit had all your usual supplies plus a whilfloc tablet which I have not used before. I usually just use Irish moss. Anyways, the brewing went as good as usual. I took my turkey baster out to grab a sample from the carboy for my OG before I pitched the yeast. I then pitched the yeast and moved the carboy to where it's dark to let the yeast do it's job. When I came back to get my gravity reading the wort in the test tube had became pretty clumpy. I have never seen this before and was wondering if it was caused by the whilfloc tablet. The picture below is what it looked like. It's been almost 3 days now and the fermentation seems to be going as planned but I do have lots of clumps like this going on in my carboy as well.

View attachment 1429510842804.jpg

Kharnynb · Apr 20, 2015

Perfectly normal, i've seen similar with irish moss too.

ImNoExpert · Apr 20, 2015

Yes. That is the whirlfloc doing its job. It will settle out in the fermentor.

unionrdr · Apr 20, 2015

Those are dissolved proteins the Whirlfloc took out. They'll settle. I usually let the wort poured into primary & topped off with cold water to allow the stuff to do it's job for a couple minutes while I do something else related.

zach21b · Apr 20, 2015

Thanks for the advice, glad to hear its a normal occurrence.

mrgrimm101 · Apr 22, 2015

Totally normal with whirlfloc. It makes the break material clump together like that and settle out nicely. IMO it's sort of a pain because I can't seem to leave behind much trub in the kettle when transferring if I use whirlfloc, but it settles well enough.