n00b to conicals, question concerning use

[beta pleated sheet]

I got a stainless steel fermenter a few months back, and it's been wonderful to me so far. Thing is, when I went to dump out the trub and collect yeast for the batch I've got in there now I was faced with a yeast plug that's clinging on much more stubbornly than usual. I got out some trub (about a half a cup) and the the flow stopped. I tried again in an hour and got nothing more than a drizzle of clear beer.

I'm thinking this could be due to the fact that I usually start draining the sediment off little by little as early as three days into fermentation, but this time I was five days in before I tried (I've been very sick, so I kind of forgot about it: proof that I'm REALLY feeling crappy).

Well, I guess the point of all that was, does anyone have any trick for reasoning with sticky yeast?

 

[abracadabra]

Sounds like you learned the lesson the hard way.

But you might try to force it out by using some pressure from a CO2 tank or pressurizing the conical by removing the air lock an putting in a solid stopper.

You may have to just use the racking port to get the beer and manually clean the trub out once you've removed the beer.

Another thing to keep in mind is try to leave as much of the cold break behind and not transfer it to the fermenter. Of course if you're using a counterflow chiller that's not really possible.

If that's the case dump that trub early and often.

More than likely what's stopping up your conical is trub from the cold break not yeast.

Hope you get to feeling better.