How do you avoid large trub and sludge?

[buddyboy]

During my very first try at home brewing, I cooked up an IPA recipe that the homebrew store gave me, and I added hops into the boil and again during fermentation. Its an IPA so there is lots of hops in the wort. When I transferred (racked) to the priming pale, much to my regret I had to leave nearly a gallon in the bottom. Its a 5 gallon recipe. the bottom gallon settled with green sludge. How do you avoid the green hops sludge or trub that consumed so much of the batch? Today I order a 3 inch round Hops Jack. I gotta find a way to strain or keep that hops out so my 5 gallon recipe so it actually makes the prescribed 5 gallons. Any recommendations from experienced home brewers would be appreciated.

 

[HBngNOK]

Line your fermentation bucket with a 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bag from Lowes, Home Depot, etc. and pour the wort through the paint strainer bag. Then lift the bag out and let it drain.

 

[Dopeybrew]

I pour my chilled post boil wort into my bottling bucket, and let it rest for about 10 mins and then use the spigot to xfer it to the primary and aerate it in one shot. The 10 min rest lets most of the crap settle to the bottom of the bucket and I only end up losing about a liter or 2.

 

[Brews]

Try whirlpooling your cooled wort in the BK. Once you get a strong whirlpool going, cover it and let it sit for 30-40 mins. Siphon off the side of the BK right into your fermenter. The whirlpool will get most of the trub to the center creating a cone and leaving the sides mostly clear. I usually lose about 1/2 beers worth.

 

[krackin]

Get a bigger fermenter, adjust for loss, save slurry and live happily ever after.

 

[opiate82]

Get a bigger fermenter, adjust for loss, save slurry and live happily ever after.

I started just dumping everything into the fermenter. I initially had major issues with my IPA's fermenting violently and clogging up my blow-off tubes with hop material and eventually blowing the lids off my fermenting buckets, but every since I started using FermCap-S that hasn't been an issue.

I don't enter a lot of contests but the lowest score-sheet I have ever received is a 37 and my average score for the year is above 40 and no off-flavors/effects that could be attributed to this method have ever been noted, but whether kettle-hops and/or trub should end up in the fermenter or not has been endlessly debated around here with no definitive "this is the way to do it" consensus. But just dumping everything in works well for me!

 

[KepowOb]

I'm guessing part of the lots was from dry hopping, since you said you added hops to the fermentation bucket... You can put them in a sanitized muslin bag if you want, or just deal with the loss, though a full gallon of lots seems like a lot. And just so you know, you'll always have a nice 1-2" of yeast cake at the bottom, and you'll always have some loss.

 

[Brews]

I started just dumping everything into the fermenter. I initially had major issues with my IPA's fermenting violently and clogging up my blow-off tubes with hop material and eventually blowing the lids off my fermenting buckets, but every since I started using FermCap-S that hasn't been an issue.

I don't enter a lot of contests but the lowest score-sheet I have ever received is a 37 and my average score for the year is above 40 and no off-flavors/effects that could be attributed to this method have ever been noted, but whether kettle-hops and/or trub should end up in the fermenter or not has been endlessly debated around here with no definitive "this is the way to do it" consensus. But just dumping everything in works well for me!

I just read this http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/ from another post on here.

 

[Brulosopher]

Truby scored a 41 in a comp judged by 2 Nationally ranked BJCP judges

 

[opiate82]

I just read this http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/ from another post on here.

That is a great example of how the homebrew community has shown that we don't necessarily have to subscribe to the traditional brewing methods.

With that said is what I gathered from that particular experiment is that rather than either filtering or not filtering the trub out, really you can do either method depending on the style and desired results. For example, even though I don't filter my trub normally I am considering doing so with my wheat brews now.

 

[MindenMan]

I use the paint filters myself, but slightly different. I use a half round SS strainer, set two filters on top of each other creating a four layer filter. I get my BK as cool as possible before racking into my fermenter. A little gets through, but the closer to the bottom I get, the more sludge. I know, no brainer, right? The trub creates it's own filter. I don't really lose any volume to speak of, and cold crashing pretty much gets the rest. I did try pouring my wort using the strainers the way they were designed, and as soon as I lifted them out of my bucket, the fabric stretched and put the majority of the junk back in.