Removing Trub and Hop Sediment from Boil Kettle

[permo]

Alright, batch after batch I am disgusted that I am tossing 1 gallon or even more of delicious beer out of my brew kettle after whirlpool and siphoning due to hop sediment and trub.

Has anybody discoverd a workable solution? I am thinking about fabricating a fine steel mesh strainer, like the basket in a deep fryer, that fits my boil kettle and remains in the kettle for the full duration of the boil and is only removed once the wort is cooled below 80 degrees.

Has anybody come up with a workable solution to allow us to save more of our delicious, hard earned beer?

 

[nebben]

A couple things... When I ferment in my conical (this would work with bucket fermentors too), I cool my wort in the boil kettle with all the hops and hot-break leftovers. When cool, I pour it through a large mesh colander that fits over the opening of my fermenter. Most of the solids stop in the colander and the wort gets through.

Other than that, I usually just plan on losing 1/2G to trub in my fermenter anyway, so I will plan on having a post-boil volume of 5.5G anyway, especially if I'm using a carboy on that batch for primary.

 

[flyerwire]

couldnt you just let it settle overnight in the conical, remove the sediment, then pitch? probably saves you a good amount of work

 

[Flywheel]

paint strainer bag works well: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/paint-strainer-bags-86155/

Or, sometime, I just put it all in ...shhhhhh

 

[Revvy]

You could just dump it all in your fermenter, it'll all settle out into the trub anyway, and any liquid "trapped" will become part of the beer. You won't be losing anything if everything goes in.

*shrug*

 

[Patirck]

This also brings up the questions of fermenting with and without any trub. I have seen some posts that claim fermentation will be healthier with some trub. Conversely, some say that the best way to get super bright beer is to have as few solids as possible at every step of the way - get a good filter bed for super clear wort, scrape off hot break during the boil, get a good whirlpool and don't get any trub in the fermenter.

I have wondered if it might be better to do all these things and then put the final wort in the fermenter in a fridge overnight to get all the solids on the bottom, then rack off the trub cake into a new fermenter, let it warm to pitching temp, then pitch. I am becoming more enamored with making super bright beer (I know it doesn't really matter but it is yet another brewing challenge).

 

[BendBrewer]

This creates a great filter as the hops collapse onto the false bottom and very little trub ends up in the fermenter. I leave a couple of quarts behind but I plan on that.

 

[permo]

Ooooh, a false bottom on my brew kettle could work wonders. I also thought about just dumping her all into the fermenter as well. If you primary long enough, I would assume it will all settle.

 

[Revvy]

This also brings up the questions of fermenting with and without any trub. I have seen some posts that claim fermentation will be healthier with some trub. Conversely, some say that the best way to get super bright beer is to have as few solids as possible at every step of the way - get a good filter bed for super clear wort, scrape off hot break during the boil, get a good whirlpool and don't get any trub in the fermenter.

I have wondered if it might be better to do all these things and then put the final wort in the fermenter in a fridge overnight to get all the solids on the bottom, then rack off the trub cake into a new fermenter, let it warm to pitching temp, then pitch. I am becoming more enamored with making super bright beer (I know it doesn't really matter but it is yet another brewing challenge).

That's why I brought it up. Because it's one of those things that is a matter of personal preference and nothing else. Some dump everything in, without straining, just pour it in the bucket or in the funnel....Some use a big strainer that fit in the funnel for a carboy, or a sanitized 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bag in the bucket...

I have done it all ways. It really doesn't matter...anything will settle.

In other words, there is no wrong way to do it, or better way, or way that will make the best beer...they all work...the choice is what will work the best for you. That's how you develop you own unique brewing process. By trying all ways and deciding what works best for you.

What I do with my IC, is chill the wort, then I lean the bottom of my autosiphon about two coils up from the bottom on the metal of the siphon. That rests it above most of the break material and trub, then I rack it to the fermenter until I'm down to that and carefully lower the siphon down into the gunk, just trying to get as much of the wort as possible without letting in the hops and break matter.

But pretty much up until I got my immersion chiller I just dumped for the majority of my batches. And I still managed to do well in contests...

I find that long primaries render my beer just as clear, and crisp tasting regardless of whether I dumped it all in or not....so I just do what works for me.....

 

[BendBrewer]

Ooooh, a false bottom on my brew kettle could work wonders. I also thought about just dumping her all into the fermenter as well. If you primary long enough, I would assume it will all settle.

Yeah, either way. The FB does work great though.

 

[flyerwire]

i use a strainer if i want to keep the stuff out, but eh, gets to be a lot of work. I need to find some money and just get a conical, makes things so much easier

 

[brettwasbtd]

If you are making ales, it really doesn't matter. Dump it all in. If you are making lagers then ya, you probably want to remove most of the trub.

 

[Golddiggie]

I put the hops into either nylon or muslin bags before tossing them into the boil... Makes for less trub in the kettle, and fermenter. Of course, leaving the brew (especially with ale yeast) in primary for longer helps to compact the trub/cake and make transfers easier and more complete.

 

[beeber]

Pour about 1/2 gallon of the trub right into the fermenter. This will mostly settle out over time as the fermentation winds down.

Take the remaining 1/2 gallon of trub and pour it into a growler or plastic bottles and refrigerate. After a day or three, the trub will separate from the wort, which can be frozen and used as a starter for next time.

 

[Surface_Tension]

Just dump it in your primary.

I used to try and settle/filter/whirlfloc...etc. from boil kettle to fermenter. Now I just rack and let gravity do the rest. Two weeks in the primary and if I want to filter any loose chunks of hops/trup at that point a sanitized grain bag or paint bucket strainer in the bottling bucket or corny keg does the trick.

 

[BankerJohn]

I'm no expert... but here are the results of my experimentation.

three batches ago, I made a homemade hop sock (5 gallon paint strainer bag from Home Depot) iwth a 4' hose clamp attached to 4" union PVC pipe drilled with three 8" eye bots to stretch to the rim of the keggle to hold it out of the boil. The bag hangs into the boil. All hop additions go into the bag.

Using the hop sock, there are some of the hop trub that gets through but my trub has been rduced by well over 80%. I would guess there is about a 1/2 cup of trub left behind rather than the gallon or so I had before.

Due to the greatly reduced amount of trub, very little picks up through the dip tube in the bottom of the keggle. Also, my dip tube is offset and not at the lowest point on the bottom of the keggle; more off to one side. The offset is intentional to allow me to whirlpool to get trub to the middle then siphon off of the side where there is very little trub that gets siphoned out.

Hope this helps someone else.

 

[mnpaddler]

I have a friend who is a Brewmeister..I asked him this same question as it bothered me to have all the trub in the carboy.I do 10 gallon batches so my 1st 5 gallons stay pretty clear and the 2nd five gallons get all the trub...his response is that trub is additional food for yeast and to leave it...later you can secondary or just simply wait 3-4 weeks and it will cake up. My biggest problem is that living in colorado the water is so soft that everything seems to want to stay suspended-when I lived in Minnesota (northern part) our water was so hard everything settled out in a matter of hours! So apparently getting the right Ph is the trick!

 

[jvh261]

My method has just been a funnel with a removable screen installed. Catches most of it, and when I'm making IPAs for some reason I like the idea of all the wort flowing through the hop matter on the way into the fermenter. The cooled wort falling into the carboy through the funnel also provided sort of a primitive way of aerating...or so I convinced myself. I still don't really like all that splashing for what its worth.

Another method I tried was simply taking a nylon paint strainer bag and using a clean and sanitized rubber band to tie it around (or a few spins of teflon tape - sanitize after applying) my auto siphon or tubing. I tried it both ways. For hoppier beers I would attach it to the tubing to keep the beer flowing through the hops. Not sure that this does much, but what the heck....for wheats, belgians, I'd just take a cut out section of a strainer bag and wrap it around the business end of the siphon leaving a few inches of slack and let 'er rip. Seemed to do the trick for the most part...and if a little gets in, no big deal. It'll settle out.

<<What I do with my IC, is chill the wort, then I lean the bottom of my autosiphon about two coils up from the bottom on the metal of the siphon. That rests it above most of the break material and trub, then I rack it to the fermenter until I'm down to that and carefully lower the siphon down into the gunk, just trying to get as much of the wort as possible without letting in the hops and break matter.>>

I like this idea and may very will be giving it a try.

 

[beerspitnight]

We use a fine mesh strainer to run most of the liquid through - and there is a trub blocker on the bottom of our brew kettle that surrounds the outlet - nothing fancy, just a piece of arched metal about 1.5 inches high that is welded along the side of the bk.
Any left over liquid will go to our starter - just need to strain it and then boil it down/add water to get it to the gravity that we want.

 

[bctdi]

My question is ... Do the hops that make it into the fermenter and sitting in the beer for 3 weeks impart any harsh or grassy flavors to the beer? I mean how is that different than dry hopping for 3 weeks? Today I made an ipa with 6 oz of hop pellets in the boil. Filtered the wort through a paint strainer for the 1st time and got about 2 cups of hops out that would have been in the fermenter for 3 weeks. This could be the reason my ipa's all seem to turn out harsh and grassy, but all of my malt forward beers turn out great. One could argue that the hops have been isomerized , but if there are a lot of late additions , then all those hops could contribute flavor in the fermenter.....which would be ok I guess for a few days , but for 3 weeks? Not so sure.Break material I don't care about , but I will be filtering the hops out from now on.

 

[RM-MN]

When the ferment is done, hops tend to settle out first and get covered with a layer of yeast that tend to separate them from the maturing beer so they don't change the flavor. When you dry hop, the hops end up on top.

 

[BrewThruYou]

Here's my technique (I'm admittedly rather new to everything...been AG brewing for 7 months). I use a hop spider for my hops.

For break material, I do the following:

I have a Boilermaker with ball valve. I use a 1gal sanitized paint strainer bag and a sanitized 3' thermoplastic tubing (thickwall from Northern Brewer...kinda rigid). I also shoot some Starsan into the ball valve. I have the tube aimed into my fermenter (6.5gal bucket), but I'm holding the paint strainer bag over the end of the tube.

After whirlpooling and letting it sit, I'll let the valve open and strain it through the paint strainer bag. If I let it sit for a while after WP, then the stuff coming from the valve looks great until the end. Last night, I chilled, whirpooled like crazy, and then went to Five Guys.

The bottom of my kettle is filled with crap after I transfer. However, the last maybe gallon through the paint strainer bag is also filled with crap. The dip tube is sucking up a bunch, but it's mostly getting filtered out. After the transfer, the strainer bag is clogged with break material, so I'll play with the bag a little to try to get some more wort out.

 

[ptakers]

I put a nylon mesh bag into my primary bucket, and after chilling the wort I dump the whole kettle into the back in the bucket. I'll pick up the bag and drain the wort out - like BTY just said, I'll have to fiddle with the back to get all the wort out - moving the bag so the wort can drain through an un-clogged part of the bag.

I'll get probably 98% of the wort into the fermenter and 98% of the solids are left in the bag.

 

[OldManHouston]

I chill, then whirlpool and let sit for 20-30 minutes so everything falls to the bottom. Not sure the whirlpool really does anything for me, no center cone. When I siphon off, I do tend to pick up a decent amount of hop material toward the bottom and I still end up leaving about a 1/2 gal in the kettle.

The only reason I try to avoid getting hop material in there is for the potential to harvest yeast. I know you don't want to harvest yeast from really hoppy batches regardless of whether you have hop material in there. From what I understand, its the hop oils that coat the yeast helping protect them from infections but also stifles reproduction and health to a certain degree.

I'm probably rambling here at this point... Basically just wondering about at what level of hop material in the fermenter should the yeast not be harvested? Maybe it doesn't even matter since you've extracted the hop oils already even if you don't have the vegetative matter in there.

 

[Crinkle]

Revvy is wise beyond his years.

I used to do the whole funnel with a strainer in it, it was a PITA.
Now I do exactly like Revvy does (although I didn't know that until now) and it works great. I'm all for doing an extra step if will really help my beer, but I'm also all about doing less work when it doesn't!

OK, moslty all about doing less work, but whatever... Everyone does it different, to me that's what's so great about brewing. Finding your own way