How to keep Trub out of the fermenter

[Goowa]

All good methods so far, now i have many things to try out.

Has anyone used the hopstopper 2.0 they look pretty neat, check this youtube video out If anyone has tried or heard any the good/bad about it please let me and the rest of us know anti trub camp members in on your comments.

I haven't used one but I mounted my element with enough clearance to give me the option to install one in the future. Have only heard good reviews so far.

 

[nick sekerak]

They seem pretty sweet, they also say that no whirlpool is necessary. This would cut some time out of your brew day. I am 80% ready to buy one just to try out. All i need to make sure is that i have 2" clearance between my heating element and the bottom of my kettle. I may be able to bend the elements up slightly

 

[Soulshine2]

The beauty of homebrewing. There is no "one way to do it right". I have seen that a lot of people "dump it all in" and create great beers. I have seen that people take great effort to keep trub out of the fermenter and they create great beers.

IMO, trub in the fermenter is a non issue. I try to keep it out only to limit the loss of beer in the trub layer, and to make it easier to siphon without getting trub into the bottling bucket or keg.

Moderation. Don't just dump the entire trub in there BUT on the flipside don't get all anal about getting every last bit of trub out either. It will settle out in time. RDWAHAHB.

 

[mtbr_brewer]

I'm using the hop stopper right now in my new Spike Kettle. I was using one previously in my keggle and had great results with both. It does an absolutely fantastic job of keeping the trub out, and also performs well with the hoppy beers I tend to brew. Below is a picture of it in just a typical porter (3oz of hops), but you can see it drains completely and keeps all the trub out of my fermenters!

 

[Soulshine2]

I haven't used one but I mounted my element with enough clearance to give me the option to install one in the future. Have only heard good reviews so far.

Looks great but Id like to see the part they cut out of the video...they went from draining to a kettle full of dry'ish trub and where was the hopstopper under all that trub?

 

[Soulshine2]

I'm using the hop stopper right now in my new Spike Kettle. I was using one previously in my keggle and had great results with both. It does an absolutely fantastic job of keeping the trub out, and also performs well with the hoppy beers I tend to brew. Below is a picture of it in just a typical porter (3oz of hops), but you can see it drains completely and keeps all the trub out of my fermenters!

I'm glad you posted this pic...is there a hole in the hopstopper where your drain spout goes through it?

 

[Cavpilot2000]

There is also no clumping together of cold trub, what you see clumping together is actually hot break material. If this were not the case then large breweries would not invest large sums in cold wort centrifuges.

You may be right, and I don't want to argue the point needlessly, but I am going to respectfully disagree, because it runs counter to traditional brewing terminology.
The reason we call hot break what we do, is because it consists of stuff that comes out of suspension and coagulates during the boil. And the reason we call cold break what we do is that it comes out of suspension during rapid chilling.
If cold break were essentially invisible and didn't come out of suspension or change in any way during chilling, we wouldn't have a name for it because it wouldn't be a thing - it would just be another part of the wort solution.

Maybe I'm wrong and I've misunderstood these materials for the 20+ years I've been brewing and reading brewing literature. I am always open to being corrected when I am wrong, but I will need to see some respected literature or science supporting your assertion (and, in fact, would love to, if you can point me toward some).

 

[Soulshine2]

You may be right, and I don't want to argue the point needlessly, but I am going to respectfully disagree, because it runs counter to traditional brewing terminology.
The reason we call hot break what we do, is because it consists of stuff that comes out of suspension and coagulates during the boil. And the reason we call cold break what we do is that it comes out of suspension during rapid chilling.
If cold break were essentially invisible and didn't come out of suspension or change in any way during chilling, we wouldn't have a name for it because it wouldn't be a thing - it would just be another part of the wort solution.

Maybe I'm wrong and I've misunderstood these materials for the 20+ years I've been brewing and reading brewing literature. I am always open to being corrected when I am wrong, but I will need to see some respected literature or science supporting your assertion (and, in fact, would love to, if you can point me toward some).

Hot break= floating protein scum during boil, I skim this
cold break = settled particles once chilled. includes hop trub as well as other (fine grain particles )solids
Thats what I read into it as well.

 

[Vale71]

Yes, you have misunderstood. Cold break is called so because it's made up of proteins that will coagulate and coalesce only below a certain temperature. They do not come out of supension but out of solution. To come out of suspension they have to fall to the bottom of the container and that will take some time as determined by Stoke's law and of course the geometry of the vessel (coolship anyone?). One important factor in the equation is particle radius squared, meaning smaller particles will fall a lot slower than larger ones. Cold break particles are about 1/10th of a yeast cell so you would expect them to fall 100 times slower (all other conditions being approximately equal). If you could really clear wort of cold break in such a short time than imagine how fast yeast would drop to the bottom as soon as it is pitched...

And here is a brewing literature source for you:

Narziß, "Abriss der Bierbrauerei", 7. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage. Pages 182-183 is a good place to start.

 

[Vale71]

cold break = settled particles once chilled. includes hop trub as well as other (fine grain particles )solids
Thats what I read into it as well.

That's a misconception. Break material doesn't become cold break material just because it is cooled. Hop trub and grain dust was already out of solution during boil, cold break proteins only came out of solution after chilling.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

That's a misconception. Break material doesn't become cold break material just because it is cooled. Hop trub and grain dust was already out of solution during boil, cold break proteins only came out of solution after chilling.

Fair enough, I'll look into the Narziss text, since I just got an English translated copy.

So given this, we can say that cold break is not part of the trub, and is therefore irrelevant to this discussion of keeping trub out of the fermenter.
All else applies with regard to reducing or eliminating trub in the fermenter, from the reasons to try to do so to the relatively simple methods for doing it.

 

[Vale71]

Once the misconceptions have been cleared up (hopefully) then yes I'd say it's no longer relevant, also because studies have actually shown that cold break (and cold break only!) material is beneficial to yeast so trying to separate it would be not just very hard but also rather pointless.

 

[Qhrumphf]

The amount of cold break you actually get is tiny compared to the settling hot break you see in the kettle.

When knocking off prior to harvesting yeast, I only see maybe a few quarts of cold break come out before it's clean yeast slurry. And thats out of a 60bbl batch. With a 10 bbl batches it was a few cups.

(Of course it's not a black and white line, but the change is obvious).

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Narziss states that at 5C, there should only be about 14% of cold break left in suspension.
The percentage is probably considerably higher at lager pitching temps (it is probably an exponential increase, not a linear increase with temp), but since I generally chill in the kettle to 7-8C prior to letting it settle for 30 minutes, this is probably a big part of why I am able to get such clear wort prior to transfer to the fermenter.
In this case, there is some essentially invisible cold break still in the solution, but the good cold chill and rest has effectively dropped all other solids out, along with a good portion of the cold break.

 

[Vale71]

I suspect either a misunderstanding or a mistranslation there. How much is left in suspension cannot depend just on temperature, the particles have to physically settle to the bottom of the vessel and this is dependent on so many variables that you cannot make blanket statements like these.
Can you point to the section where you found this statement? I'd like to check out the original text.

 

[rmyurick]

Short and shoddy?

What self respecting person in any hobby would openly promote something like that?

It’s their whole ethos distilled into a three word mission statement.

It's a "shortcut" to express what ABI would call "brew house efficiency".

 

[Jako]

Imo trub in fermenter = more muddy beer. I hate trub, also because i harvest yeast.

If you let gunk sit in water for a while, decant it, drink it, you can still taste it. The difference with beer is that your have more malt/hops etc to mask it, but it's still there.

same i harvest yeast so i try to keep as much as i can out.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I suspect either a misunderstanding or a mistranslation there. How much is left in suspension cannot depend just on temperature, the particles have to physically settle to the bottom of the vessel and this is dependent on so many variables that you cannot make blanket statements like these.
Can you point to the section where you found this statement? I'd like to check out the original text.

I'm sorry, I misspoke (got my PDFs mixed up) - it's Kunze, not Narziss.
IN the edition I have, it is in section 3.9.1.2 Formation and Optimal Removal of Cold Break
In addition to mentioning that it has the property of adhering to other particles, Kunze states:
"Cold break consists of protein-polyphenol compounds which precipitate to a greater extent in relatively cold media and partially dissolve again on warming. This means that wort on cooling to 5 °C still contains 14 % of the
total cold break in dissolved form."

 

[Vale71]

I have Kunze too but I don't need to look that up as it clearly says "dissolved" and not suspended. What happens to the remaining 86% is a completely different story.
OK I really need to get a grip on my OCD, I did look it up (the book is sitting next to my desk). He says that the particles settle "with great difficulty" and that they adhere to other particles such as yeast and bubbles (flotation tank anyone?) not to each other. I'm translating on the fly so your wording might be slightly different.

 

[Cavpilot2000]

I have Kunze too but I don't need to look that up as it clearly says "dissolved" and not suspended. What happens to the remaining 86% is a completely different story.
OK I really need to get a grip on my OCD, I did look it up (the book is sitting next to my desk). He says that the particles settle "with great difficulty" and that they adhere to other particles such as yeast and bubbles (flotation tank anyone?) not to each other. I'm translating on the fly so your wording might be slightly different.

No, my wording is essentially the same. And yes, he says sticking to "other particles", and cites yeast and air bubbles specifically (of which there should be essentially none at this point). However, there are TONS of other types of particles in the wort at this point to which it can adhere (all that hops, hot break, tiny grain particles, etc that make up the trub that is settling out).

If it has a propensity to adhere to other particles, and there is an abundance of particles for it to adhere to, which are falling out of suspension, it is only logical that it would adhere to said particles and fall out with them, no?

I completely agree that such small particles all by themselves would take a long time to settle out, but given an abundance of other vehicles to catch a ride on, and given that it seems to be looking for a ride (a propensity for adherence), we aren't dealing with a "tiny particles all by themselves" sort of situation.

 

[Vale71]

Well Kunze is working on the premise that first you remove the hot break (whirlpool or whatever your means of choice) and then you cool so the wort being cooled is pretty clear already. But finings can indeed help in removing some cold break material, the question is just how fast they will work since you shouldn't unduly delay pitching. Once you pitch two things will happen (among many others):

- yeast will start collecting cold break material on its surface and if that worries you then it's too late for that (but you can keep on worrying if you wish)
- convective movements caused by fermentation will keep cold break material in suspension even more efficiently than they will yeast itself as cold break particles are even smaller

That's why all cold break removal efforts aim at removing it before pitching (except for flotation).

 

[Cavpilot2000]

Well Kunze is working on the premise that first you remove the hot break (whirlpool or whatever your means of choice) and then you cool so the wort being cooled is pretty clear already. But finings can indeed help in removing some cold break material, the question is just how fast they will work since you shouldn't unduly delay pitching. Once you pitch two things will happen (among many others):

- yeast will start collecting cold break material on its surface and if that worries you then it's too late for that (but you can keep on worrying if you wish)
- convective movements caused by fermentation will keep cold break material in suspension even more efficiently than they will yeast itself as cold break particles are even smaller

That's why all cold break removal efforts aim at removing it before pitching (except for flotation).

All true, but in the homebrew environment, most of us are chilling in the brew kettle (or in a CFC exiting the brew kettle), so we get the added "benefit" of tons of particulate matter (trub) for cold break to settle out on.

And what's even better is the remains of the cold break that don't catch a ride to the bottom (the invisible floaties) are likely to have beneficial properties for the yeast and are not part of the schmutz (trub) we were trying to remove in the first place.

It sounds like a win-win!

Plus, we get the benefit of a little mental exercise via our lively discussion on brewing science!

 

[mtbr_brewer]

I'm glad you posted this pic...is there a hole in the hopstopper where your drain spout goes through it?

Yes, there is a hole in the mesh and silicone gasket for your dip tub. This allows the wort to be pulled through the filter (blocking materials) before entering your fermenter. I didn't need to modify my spike diptube but I know some kinds requiring notching. I just had these kettles made at black Friday and intentionally didn't put a re-circulation port because I knew I was going to use the hop stopper and wouldn't need one. I've been nothing but pleased with it's performance.

 

[HTH1975]

This is what I’d refer to as cold break. We chill via a plate chiller, do there is a decent amount of break material transferred to FV. This is the cold break settled out in a trial jar after taking a sample

 

[rnorman57]

I whirlpool when starting chilling and after I start transferring to fermenter I put a stainless cake ring over the trub mound in the middle when I start to see it.

 

[RPh_Guy]

What if I follow the advice of letting it settle 30 mins+ and transfer only clear wort to my fermenter, but then transfer the truberiffic wort to a 1 gal fermenter and then compare them myself when they're finished?

 

[Cavpilot2000]

What if I follow the advice of letting it settle 30 mins+ and transfer only clear wort to my fermenter, but then transfer the truberiffic wort to a 1 gal fermenter and then compare them myself when they're finished?

I would love to hear the results. Please do it, you know, for science!

 

[schematix]

just make sure you do a triangle test, otherwise confirmation bias.

 

[Vale71]

All true, but in the homebrew environment, most of us are chilling in the brew kettle (or in a CFC exiting the brew kettle), so we get the added "benefit" of tons of particulate matter (trub) for cold break to settle out on.

This is probably not as effective as you would think. Since cold break starts forming below 60°C unless you chill the wort really, really fast, most of the larger particulate matter will already have settled to the bottom long before it had a chance to "meet up" with any cold break material. Maybe if you where to give everything a good rousing once the wort is cold and then let it all settle once more...

 

[Qhrumphf]

This is probably not as effective as you would think. Since cold break starts forming below 60°C unless you chill the wort really, really fast, most of the larger particulate matter will already have settled to the bottom long before it had a chance to "meet up" with any cold break material. Maybe if you where to give everything a good rousing once the wort is cold and then let it all settle once more...

A good number of responses have said "I whirlpool it once it's cold". I wonder if that doesn't have an impact on the tightness of the cone (looser) vs whirlpooling hot and leaving it alone. My hot whirlpools have been tighter than when I've tried spinning cold, but there are so many other factors that correlation =/= causation.