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Should I rack to secondary?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 11 100.0%

  • Total voters
    11

Tyler Hurst

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Made a Pliny the Elder clone last weekend with WLP-001. I dumped everything from the BK into primary and got about 4-5 inches of hop trub in the bottom (pic 1). Then when the yeast took off the beer turned green (pic 2). It is burning through fermentation. Thermostat probe reads 67-69 degrees but it’s been in my 55 degree basement. I have to go back to work tomorrow and if fermentation finishes while I’m gone I don’t want it getting too cold I still have to dry hop twice!

Should I try to rack to secondary before dry hopping and filter out that trub to keep as much wort as possible? I know keeping (some) trub isn’t a bad thing but I also don’t want vegetal off flavors. My wife (SWMBO) loves Pliny and if I make a beer she loves, she will May indulge in me improving my system.
 

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it appears to me that you just have ALOT of hop/break material going on in there. i dont have any first hand experiance in that case as i have always whirpooled and left that stuff behind but my advice is leave it as is. dont worry about the temp at this point either. just carry on with your dryhopping schedule and i would personally not transfer to a secondary either. next time try to avoid getting all that junk in there if possible though. cheers
 
it appears to me that you just have ALOT of hop/break material going on in there. i dont have any first hand experiance in that case as i have always whirpooled and left that stuff behind but my advice is leave it as is. dont worry about the temp at this point either. just carry on with your dryhopping schedule and i would personally not transfer to a secondary either. next time try to avoid getting all that junk in there if possible though. cheers

Thanks, yes I totally made that noob mistake. I actually did whirlpool but then during transfer I found myself pouring every last bit in. I blame it on lost sleep to my 4 month old son lol.
 
Last weekend? Like 4 or 5 days so far? If so fermentation has kept the trub in suspension. The trub should compact some with time. I would leave it in primary and dry hop there also. Leave it long enough for the trub to compact before bottling or kegging so you don't lose too much beer.
 
Thanks, yes I totally made that noob mistake. I actually did whirlpool but then during transfer I found myself pouring every last bit in. I blame it on lost sleep to my 4 month old son lol.
Eh it happens. I found it difficult to effectively whirlpool without a pump anyway. Alternatively and maybe you're already doing this but after you finish chilling you should leave your kettle were it is undisturbed and start your siphoning a from midway up and don't be tempted to get all that last bit. It takes a few brews to get the hang of it. Cheers
 
Thanks all. Almost done fermenting and I heeded everyone’s advice. The temp prob is covered by insulation (not pictured, beer is in swamp cooler now), leaving everything in primary (even when I dry hop tomorrow) will def be whirlpooling properly. Along those lines I use a brewers edge mash and boil and I have a SMALL recirculating pump to get wort from top to bottom but don’t know how to set up a sparse arm for it. I know I can buy one. Just thought I would ask.
 
For my money whirlpool isn’t very effective to help leave behind the cold break for high gravity wort. The break just doesn’t sink very well and causes me to have a lot more trub above 1.075 OG or so. I’ve never tried it, but I bet that a traditional three vessel system to vorlauf and fly sparge would help a lot with trub on high gravity beers. I do get some mileage by finding a clear spot near the surface of the wort and working my way down with my syphon, rather than just setting my syphon in the bottom and lettin’ her rip.
 
Last weekend? Like 4 or 5 days so far? If so fermentation has kept the trub in suspension. The trub should compact some with time. I would leave it in primary and dry hop there also. Leave it long enough for the trub to compact before bottling or kegging so you don't lose too much beer.

Yeah. Last Sunday. WLP001 doesn’t play around I guess. There are already about 1 min gaps between bubbles in airlock. My keezer will be finished after Friday (when rest of parts get here) and I also plan to do a hard cold crash in that before transfering to keg For carbonation (after a 5 day dry hop period with 5 more oz of hops). Hopefully I don’t loose too much wort (uncarbonayed beer?). I’ll be using a straining filter in my siphon line to try to get as much as possible and draining from the top as AZCooler recommended.
 
Actually once fermentation begins your wort is beer. At that point it is "uncarbonated beer" I would expect you to have problems trying to filter during the siphoning. I the case of a beer like a Pliney, it is probably better to gather more wort than usual and expect to lose a lot to trub. Hopefully by starting with more wort you will end up with the normal amount of beer.
 
I shot for 6 gallons of wort hoping to end with 5 gallons of beer for this very reason! I think that’s why my sleep deprived mind told me to get everything in the fermentor in the first place lol. The pictures show a 7 gallon fermentor (total), it’s 6.5 with .5 headspace to the top of the neck.
 
So this beer came out amazing. Especially after everyone’s recommendations. Thank you HBT community for all the help!
B4CB8DAE-60A3-45E5-9328-84A739D8EA4A.jpg

Here is real Pliny next to my clone!
 
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