How long does your wort sit in the pot b4 going in the fermenter?

[heckofagator]

Hey guys,

I've still got under 10 brews under my belt but have noticed that a lot of my beers are pretty cloudy. I did a little reading yesterday and came across irish moss. My understanding is that this will bring out some of the solids and other proteins and let them settle to the bottom.

When I cool my wort, I do it with a copper coil immersion chiller and I find that stirring the wort really helps speed this up. However, everytime I stir, I see all sorts of stuff getting put into suspension. I'm wondering what the ideal time to let the wort sit before transferring it to the fermenter (to minimize sediment transfer?)

I think the main goal is to get the temp down as quickly as possible, but I think I need to get the pot sit more, since its just going to sit in the fermenter anyway, before transferring. After I get the temp down to about 80, (that's about as low as I can go with the chiller) and then I let the wort sit for a couple minutes and then transfer it to the fermenter to start the cooling down to 65.

thanks!

 

[dlaramie08]

You could just leave it in the fermenter and let it settle after fermentation. Your volume loss should be about the same, maybe less. It will not negatively affect flavor and is much easier. The only thing I remove is hops with a nylon paint strainer bag. Now this does inadvertently remove some of the trub, but not all of it.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Common sense (and common wisdom) suggests that less trub into the fermenter will result in clearer beer. However, actual results show this may not be the case. I dump it all into the fermenter and let it compact there, and clear beer comes out the other side. HBT member Brulosopher did an experiment on this and his results seemed to confirm what I suspected to the case based on my own observations. And, yes, use Irish moss or Whirlfloc to help bind the proteins so they more easily drop out of suspension, whether left in the kettle or the fermenter.

 

[heckofagator]

interesting article. that is about 180 from what I would have expected!

Well, I think I'm going to keep doing what I was doing with the addition of Irish moss.

 

[Rockn_M]

Using Irsh Moss will help. Once the wort gets to cool enough to go into a plastic bucket I dump everything in and I typically get very clear beer. A few things that I do is:
1. Make sure that fermentation is complete
2. Cold Crash for a few days before packaging
3. Becareful when moving the beer when you package.

 

[TimFarAway]

I no-chill so mine sits in the pot overnight. Use Irish Moss inthe last 10 minutes of the boil. I sanitize some aluminum foil and the lid and just let it cool naturally. Then I rack it into the fermenter with a good bunch of the trub/sludge. Cold crashing to 40* for a couple days after fermentation seems to really help. Took me a few times to get the process down, but now it works great, and delivers nice clear brews.

 

[heckofagator]

I need a place to cold crash (and ferment).

 

[Rockn_M]

I need a place to cold crash (and ferment).

If you can, I would recommend getting a chest freezer or old fridge and convert it to fermentation chamber using an STC-1000 or johnson controler. One of the best purchases I have made. The quality of beer increased dramatically and I can use it to cold crash, keg, etc.

 

[Oceantendency]

If you can, I would recommend getting a chest freezer or old fridge and convert it to fermentation chamber using an STC-1000 or johnson controler. One of the best purchases I have made. The quality of beer increased dramatically and I can use it to cold crash, keg, etc.

EXACTLY, you can also on the cheap get a 20 gallon Heavy duty Rubbermaid trashcan and control your temps through there, pour ice and water into a 5 gal bucket, let it melt, then pour gently into the trashcan to help crash IF you don't have anything else. Cold Conditioning, lagering, etc your beer post fermentation will also clean up the rough edges out of the beer as well as clear it by making those bits of floaties drop out of suspension.

One thing you can also do, is make sure you have a wort chiller and run really cold water through it to more quickly cool down your wort to get a better cold break, which will help to make things drop out and pre-condition your wort into a better state for the yeast. I've tried transferring from my boil kettle to a freshly sanitized kettle while filtering, which helps, but overall too much work for the effort. So I just kick on the water to my wort chiller, gently pour ice water around the lower outside of kettle, stir, stir, stir, then transfer the kettle off the burner into use a tub filled with icy water to about 2/3's of the top of kettle, and I cool to under 70* in under 25 minutes every time.

Quicker you cool down your wort, use Irish Moss, quicker you pitch your yeast starter, blow off tubes, and cold crashing have the best effects for clarity and getting to the next level of better beer. Not much of a difference between carboy and conical when correct techniques are applied with transferring. However, Conicals are way easier to clean and no more glass to get cut with.

 

[RM-MN]

Using Irsh Moss will help. Once the wort gets to cool enough to go into a plastic bucket I dump everything in and I typically get very clear beer. A few things that I do is:
1. Make sure that fermentation is complete
2. Cold Crash for a few days before packaging
3. Becareful when moving the beer when you package.

How cool do you let it get? I've tried getting my wort down to 60 to transfer and I've tried 80 and I've dumped boiling wort into my bucket and I seem to get the same results, clear beer.

 

[Rockn_M]

I use either an immersion chiller or a sink full of ice. With high temps I am worried about off flavors from the plastic.

 

[fartinmartin]

The Irish moss will coagulate the cold break, I don't stir at all once the cooler coil goes in, you can see it dropping out. I just leave it be, with the cooler in, the late hops are doing their thing, once it gets to about 25C I drain out slowly into my fermenter, loads of crud left on the bazooker filter that is about 30mm from the bottom , I do use some discretion and tip the pot a bit. That's what I do , but, it isn't necessary, if all the crud goes in the fermenter you will still get good beer. But, it does make the next stages cleaner. For instance the trub layer will be smaller in the fermenter, so any trub theories are reduced.

 

[guldalian]

In my experience, just using Irish moss and getting good breaks are the keys to clear beer. Doesn't matter how much crap goes in the fermentor bc it's all gonna drop out. Then you just gotta rack carefully. I just drank a cream that was clear as a Budweiser, so this seems to be working.

 

[jlangfo5]

I primary in my beer kettle . I wait till the temperature drop to pitching temperature(sometimes I sit it in a big plastic tub of ice water to help), then I pitch my starter into the kettle and stir it like a madman to get plenty of air in. At this point I will either drop it into the fermentation chamber or let it ferment at the ambient air temperature of around 65 in my apartment if the yeast I am using can tolerate higher temperatures without making bad flavors.

After a few days when the beer is around 1.020 ish, I rack the beer off the trub and the yeast that has fallen into a 6 gallon carboy and wash the kettle in the dish washer.