How do you transfer the cooled wort to primary?

[phasedweasel]

Hey, I was wondering how you guys transferred your cooled wort to your primary. How do you filter our the hops and hot break? If you rack, how do you avoid them?

I know one recommended method of avoid the junk is by whirlpooling. I stir my cooled wort up in a circular fashion to make a whirlpool and then let it sit for about half an hour, but when I siphon out the bottom quarter of the wort I still get all of the cloudy stuff - there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid it.

What's important to leave behind? Spent hops? Hot break? What affects the flavor going into the primary?

 

[glenn514]

All of my brews have been either extract with specialty grains OR all grain. I use nylon bags for the grains and the hops. Therefore, there is little, if any, "stuff" floating around in the wort. So, I simply take my brew pot and dump the wort into a funnel stuck in my 6-gallon BB. Provides aeration, too.

glenn514

 

[BendBrewer]

Lots of different answers coming your way. I use a false bottom in my kettle and pump out to my fermenter through a chiller and Oxygen stone.

Leaving a couple of quarts behind leaves about 90% of the trub behind. The Hops collapsing on top of the FB also add to the filter.

 

[Brandonovich]

I use hop socks for my hops so that I can just pull them out and be done with them. After that, I just pour from my kettle into the primary. I pour from high up and let it splash as much as possible to aerate the wort before I pitch. All the trub will settle to the bottom, and when you rack to the secondary, you leave it all behind.

 

[Acoma]

Some people strain and some people dont.

 

[Valcarde]

Funnel and strainer.

With a long primary, any stuff that gets through the strainer becomes a nice solid cake at the bottom of the carboy anyway, so it's not too hard to get the sediment out at that point.

 

[rowanb]

Whirlpool, leave sit for 20 minutes, drain through a pickup angled upward and out toward the side (away from the cone of gudge in the middle of the kettle), through the plate chiller and into a better bottle, then into the fridge to drop temp further. Once the temp has dropped and the cold break has settled, I rack to another better bottle for yeast pitching, oxygenation and fermentation, leaving cold break behind. I've not yet used strainers when draining the keg, but I've been focusing on german style pilsners, without huge amounts of hops.

 

[FrewBrew]

I just transfer over with a siphon; all of the unwanteds work their way out in primary before making its way to secondary

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

I pour mine through a paint strainer.

 

[Hoppus_Poppatopolis]

I just auto-siphon mine into the fermenter and stop when the stuff on the bottom looks really disgusting. I probably leave 1/2 - 3/4" of wort/stuff.
I used to worry about getting every last drop when I siphoned either from the kettle or the fermenter. Now, not so much.

 

[orionkf]

one gallon pitcher, poured from a height.

 

[JoeBronco]

I put a grain bag over my fermentation tank (bucket or conical) and strain the hops out.
Works great.

 

[millsware]

I used to pour through a strainer, but for the last beer I tried whirlpooling. The first few gallons that I siphoned off were clear as could be, but I hadn't let it settle enough and it started getting a little cloudy. However I did manage to leave most of the hops and trub behind and it looked very clear when transferring to the secondary last night.

 

[wolverinebrewer]

I don't fuss with it too much. I place the 10" strainer over the bucket and dump the kettle. As the hops and gunk gather in the strainer and stop the flow, I dump the strainer, spray with the hose, dip into the star san bucket and continue pouring. Once it has all been strained, I pour from the bucket back through the strainer into the kettle. If I need to spray the strainer again I will. Then I pour the decanted yeast into the bucket and then pour from the kettle back through the strainer into the bucket, put the lid on and forget about it for a month until bottle day.
I love that pic of a compacted yeast cake that Revvy uses in his responses. That is what mine looks like.

There is no way I'm whirlpooling and leaving any beer in there. I take every drop.

 

[Slowfro]

Half the time I simply pour the cooled wort from the brew kettle right into the fermenter. Sure some of the "crud" gets into the fermenter but over the course of primary it settles out and has no noticeable impact on the beer. I've used a syphon to transfer as well to compare results leaving all behind and there wasn't even a difference with beer clarity (using secondary to clear helps obviously).

Just to clarify I don't pour all contents of kettle into the fermenter. Once I get to the bottom and you see hop flakes/proteins I'll slow the pour down to get the last of the wort (some of the trub gets in) but stop before it all flows in.

Like people have said, it's all personal preference.

Wolverinebrewer - awesome quote, great movie!

 

[TheSeether]

I pour straight from kettle to fermenter splashing as much as possible without making a mess. I don't filter anything out and it all makes it in. Great beer results. KISS

 

[thom]

I also just pour straight from the kettle to the fermenter. Most of the crud falls to the bottom during the fermentation period.

 

[corncob]

I whirlpool and let it settle for 15 minutes, then siphon. I leave a half gallon (out of 6) in the kettle. Feeling around the pile of crud that's left several times has convinced me that 95% of the remains of pellet hops are left. I find that about the last half gallon I siphon out is full of cold break. I have heard on the internet, though, that some cold break in the fermenter is a good thing. Who knows?

Also I use whirlfloc, which may increase the volume of cold break I end up with after chilling.

 

[Joesf35]

I just auto-siphon mine into the fermenter and stop when the stuff on the bottom looks really disgusting. I probably leave 1/2 - 3/4" of wort/stuff.
I used to worry about getting every last drop when I siphoned either from the kettle or the fermenter. Now, not so much.

Same here

 

[mrkstel]

I primary in carboys and plastic buckets. When going into a bucket, I just dump the whole pot in there, trub, hops and all. For a carboy, I siphon the whole works in. I tried the whirlpool thing a few times. But each time it seemed like I was leaving 1 - 1.5 gallons of wort behind. Not worth it to me. Plus, I've always thought that the hops and trub are just added nutrients for the yeasties to munch on during fermentation. I could be wrong though.

 

[deadscott]

I open the valve at the bottom of my brew kettle and fliter with a funnel that has a screen in it. It gets most of the hop particles/break material and helps with aerating the wort.

 

[GoldMiner]

I hulk up and pour my kettle into the fermenter through a paint strainer.

 

[StMarcos]

Used to use a hopstopper, but now I whirlpool (before chilling with plate chiller on line to fermenter). Both work just fine. The hopstopper likes a curved bottom, like a keggle, which is why I don't use it anymore (25G flat-bottom kettle).

 

[mfraier]

I strain it if I am going to wash and reuse the yeast......if not I just dump it in.

 

[Hoppus_Poppatopolis]

I strain it if I am going to wash and reuse the yeast......if not I just dump it in.

Hmmmm. That comment makes a lot of sense to me. I think I might just become a dumper on the next batch.


Goldminer: I can't help but notice that the word "retarted" is misspelled in your sig :fro:

 

[dgoldb1]

+1 on the paint strainer bag. If your primary is a bucket, place a 5 gallon paint strainer bag into the bucket and then pour your cooler wort through it. If your primary is a carboy, place the paint strainer bag into your kettle and siphon that way. Just make sure you sanitize the bag before hand.

 

[craigevo]

I use a whirlpool cooler together with blichmann hopblocker and pickup tube. Cool to pitching. Turn off the whirlpool pump. Wait 20 mins. Drain into fermenter via whirlpool tubing.

I used to just perform manual whirlpooling with a spoon but it never really seemed to work for me, but now with this new setup i get a lot of break and hops left in the kettle leaving about 2L of stuff behind. I also no longer get arm ache!

 

[DeafSmith]

I boil in a 10 gallon Megapot and primary in a Better Bottle. I whirlpool and let sit for a while, then use my autosiphon to transfer until I start pulling up cloudy wort. At this point there isn't much left in the pot and it can easily be lifted, so I place my large funnel with screen into the mouth of the carboy, put a sanitized grain bag or paint strainer into the funnel with the excess material folded over the outside of the funnel and then pour the wort into the funnel. Sometimes I need to use a spoon to scrape the pellet hop residue to the side, but I can always easily keep it from clogging. My main object is not to keep the trub out of the carboy, but just to filter out the hop particles. I just pour until I have 5 1/4 gallons in the BB - usually have a little, maybe a quart or so, left over, which I toss.

I got worried about not being able to properly sanitize the interior of the vinyl tubing on the autosiphon as it got older, so I switched to silicone tubing - the 3/8 ID silicon tubing fits nice and tight over the cane of my large size autosiphon and I can boil the tubing, so right after I whirlpool, while I'm waiting for it to settle, I put on a pot with a couple quarts of water in it to boil and toss in the tubing, the grain bag, and my aeration stone (attached to a short piece of silicone tubing). The autosiphon, funnel, funnel screen, spoon, etc. just goes into my tray of sanitizer solution.