Particulates in wort - To keep or not to keep?

[Tobin Bottman]

Occasionally I will let my freshly brewed wort sit overnight in a sealed and sanitized bucket before pitching (getting down to lager temperature, waiting for yeast starter, etc.). A bunch of stuff settles to the bottom overnight. Do I want to transfer that into the fermenter or not when I aerate and pitch? Wondering if there might be valuable nutrients in there or if it is just grain husk and hop material? I use a hop spider so don’t have much in the way of hop material in the wort.

I have toyed with making a yeast starter from the mid runnings of the lauter and just pitching the whole thing the next day and if ‘decanting’ the wort from the bucket might have the potential for some really clear light SRM beer…thinking kolsch or pilsner.

Thanks!

 

[MHBT]

Sorry read that wrong, are you asking about the starter or finished wort?

 

[AlexKay]

Short answer: it’s going to be fine either way. I think there was a Brulosophy experiment on it, and I’ve never noticed a difference in my beers that depends on how much trub I did or didn’t transfer.

Longer answer: received wisdom is that hot break and hop particles shouldn’t go in, while there’s some evidence cold break helps the fermentation, whether because of nutrients or CO2 nucleation or both. There isn’t great evidence that brighter wort results in brighter beer, though some think it may.

 

[hotbeer]

It'll probably just become trub on the bottom of the FV.

 

[Tobin Bottman]

Sorry read that wrong, are you asking about the starter or finished wort?

Well, I wasn’t very clear either! Main question regards finished wort. Just thinking letting it sit overnight would mean I could use some of the actual runnings from the beer to make a 24 hour starter so I would be pitching the same beer i to it rather than DME. But whenever I let it sit overnight there is quite a bit of separation in the wort and I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. Or both. Or neither. I’ll search for the Brulosophy episode. Thanks all for your input.

 

[MikeCo]

I agree you could ferment with or without racking the sort off the trub and likely get the same result. You may want to try it both ways with consecutive batches and see if you detect a difference. I generally leave most of the trub in the fermenter, but I do filter out the hop material by using a hop spider.

 

[Tobin Bottman]

So there are 3 Brulosophy episodes on this topic stretching back to 2014 or so. The first two conclude that more trub made for a clearer and crisper beer, but the most recent one, based on a single taster rather than a group, preferred the flavor of the non-trub beer, though it was moderately less clear than the trub version.

I guess it is experiment time!

 

[hotbeer]

I don't drink beer with a blindfold on. How clean the beer is will affect my perception of whether it's swill or not.

Experimentation is good though. Especially if your result differ from others and a reason can be found. That gets us a little closer to science and less dogma.

Still won't help my perception though!

 

[rootAndBoom]

I often use wort from the same brew for my starters, as you describe. I don't worry about the trub the next day, with good results.

And as long as I'm doing that, no-chill is very convenient... Saves a little time on brew day, helps with my water consciousness.

 

[Tobin Bottman]

I often use wort from the same brew for my starters, as you describe. I don't worry about the trub the next day, with good results.

And as long as I'm doing that, no-chill is very convenient... Saves a little time on brew day, helps with my water consciousness.

Ooh, you rebel! I have never tried no-chill. I guess I better add it to the experiment list! Glad the starter technique works for you, I am definitely going to give that a try.