Irish moss/immersion chiller vs. Whirlfloc/CFC: WOW!

[jack13]

I made two changes to my brew day and I'm wondering which is more responsible for the differences I've observed. One change was using a counterflow chiller instead of an immersion chiller (scored a cheap CFC on craigslist) and the other was using Whirfloc instead of my usual Irish moss (LHBS was out of irish moss, which I've used exclusively before today).

After the boil I whirlpooled, as I sometimes do. But I noticed when I drained to the fermenter I was getting a lot more clear wort before the hose started to cloud up (signifying that I'm getting into the trub cone). I tilted the kettle and that super clear wort just kept coming; I never saw any gunk. Later, when I went to clean the kettle, there was a virtually dry trub cone in the middle! Never saw that before.

I also noticed an amount of cold break I've never seen before when taking a hydrometer reading (pictured). And note I've recently made this same beer with the same methods otherwise, so I think I'm making a valid comparison.

I'd have assumed the quicker chilling due to the switch to a CFC was the main reason for these differences. But I also noticed the wort looked more clear than usual even BEFORE I chilled.

Nevertheless, my guess is that the quicker chill (i.e., CFC) was the main reason, but thought I'd see what others thought.

I should mention the CFC took the wort down to about 92F (I'm taking it the rest of the way to 66F in my chest freezer, where I'll ferment it). With my immersion chiiller, it took about 45 minutes for wort to get to a temp like that.

Edit: I guess the cone must have been the whirfloc, but what about the crazy cold break in the picture?

 

[jack13]

Fermenter. Holy crap! Another first.

 

[daspooper]

I did a brew yesterday and saw something very similar to this; I used whirlfloc and an immersion chiller. I was kind of happy that I found a hole in my plastic bucket, because otherwise I wouldn't have seen the weird shapes the coagulated proteins were making. I also use irish moss most of the time, and I haven't seen stuff like this before. It looks like whirlfloc is irish moss and kappa carogen, so there is more to it than just irish moss.

Brulosophy did an xbmt with whirlfloc and saw a similar effect. http://brulosophy.com/2017/03/27/the-whirlfloc-effect-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Staticsouls]

You are probably getting a much better cooling efficiency with the cfc, resulting in a better cold break. If I had to guess.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Brulosophy discovered much the same effects that you are observing for Whirlfloc.

http://brulosophy.com/2017/03/27/the-whirlfloc-effect-exbeeriment-results/

 

[jack13]

Brulosophy discovered much the same effects that you are observing for Whirlfloc.

http://brulosophy.com/2017/03/27/the-whirlfloc-effect-exbeeriment-results/

They mentioned and showed a picture of the higher degree of clumping in the kettle after cooling. But the thing that really inspired my initial post was the amazing trub cone I saw (for the first time). After draining to the fermenter there was literally a glob of trub sitting at the bottom of the kettle and seemingly none of it got sucked out and into the fermenter as it usually does with I.M.

But I'll see if that replicates...