Is vorlauf necessary?

[telejunkie]

this may be true but i would argue that homebrew is better than commercial beer in most cases anyway. it would be interesting to see a comparison of two, or more, identical beers brewed with the vorlauf being the only variable.

i'll take your first your first sentence with a grain of salt considering i've judged many a hb comps and tasted a large pool of commercially brewed beer and while the bar is coming up on the hb side...still a far cry. That said, top level hb'ers though can compete and at times maybe best the commercial side.

I've always understood the purpose of vorlaufing was to establish the grain bed for fly-sparging. So why would commercial breweries skip vorlauf and insert a mash filter...maybe the answer is that they want to minimize particulate matter in the kettle even thought the particulates may not effect the flavor profile of the beer at all. Identical brewed beers on a controlled system with a triangle taste test would definitely be the answer...

 

[wilserbrewer]

i'll play devil's advocate here...why would commercial breweries bother with vorlauf if it didn't improve the beer?

I'm not sure one can make a direct comparison between a commercial brewery's Mash / Lauter Tun and a 48 qt. cooler with a stainless braid? The braid filters pretty darn well irregardless of vorlauf. Who knows what's under the FB in a commercial setup?

 

[Scooby_Brew]

It's simple. Vorlauf helps get a clearer beer with less trub. If you BIAB, vorlauf probably will not help at all and I'm not sure how would you have done it, but if you mash in a MLT vorlauf will help for sure.

 

[pelipen]

Here is an interesting short discussion on the topic from Jeremy King and brewing tv.


This was one of the reasons I stopped being overly concerned about it.
Edit: discussion starts at about 7:00

 

[eastoak]

It's simple. Vorlauf helps get a clearer beer with less trub. If you BIAB, vorlauf probably will not help at all and I'm not sure how would you have done it, but if you mash in a MLT vorlauf will help for sure.

this is simply not true and the way to prove it to yourself is to try a no vorlauf brew.

 

[barleyhole]

haha, that's a great video.

My vorlauf is horrible. I think probably b/c I disturb the grain bed when I pour the wort back in. Anyway I get a few chunks of husk in and the wort is not clear. No ill effect in terms of clarity, but certainly I have more trub and I hesitate to dump that in the fermenter. As a result my brewhouse efficiency suffers if I want to bring the volume back up. We'll see if I can clarify the wort better in the future.

 

[Nomad]

I vorlauf about 2 quarts at the beginning of lautering, and then 2 quarts again when I start lautering the sparge (I do a single batch sparge). The wort is always pretty clear after running two quarts.

Yep. This is my concern dude. Boiling grain particulate for an hour or more can't be good. I try to get my wort as clear as possible through a vorlauf-- three quarts through my steel braid in my cooler MT and it's clear.

 

[eastoak]

Yep. This is my concern dude. Boiling grain particulate for an hour or more can't be good. I try to get my wort as clear as possible through a vorlauf-- three quarts through my steel braid in my cooler MT and it's clear.

try it sometime then you can say for sure if it's good or not otherwise how do you know?

 

[corax]

Boiling grain particulate for an hour or more can't be good.

If boiling a few grain particles is bad, then I guess decoction mashing must be terrible.

But of course neither is bad, and for the same reason: you only extract tannins from grain at high pH, and if you're doing things right both your mash and your wort are low pH.

In terms of clarity, everything drops out with the hot break and hops.

Vorlauf == waste of time.