Trub Dump Issue

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ace0005

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I sincerely do not know that the F is wrong with me. Really could use advise of trub dump. I ferment, stuff settles.... sight glass is full of trub. I dumb the trub, but the sight glass never goes clear unless i dump more beer than i'm willing to part with. Am I alone here.... or am i doing something wrong? I'm dealing with a 12 gallon batch of my chocolate oatmeal stout... in my SS brewing 1/2 bbl conical. It has settled for 1 week, fermented (tastes delicious). I'm happy with the turnout, just cant seem to dump trub like the youtube pros.
 
What do you have connected below your sight glass?

Unless you are willing to flush a gallon of beer along with the trub, then you need to have a narrower connection to prevent the beer above from rushing passed all the slower moving trub.

A simple hose barb connection will work. I'm also assuming you are using a conical FV of some sort. Though I also have a reducer segment in between the hose barb fitting.

I still have to dump multiple times though with the little 3 gallon FV I use. Sometimes I only get a small amount of trub before the beer begins to flow passed the trub.
 
What do you have connected below your sight glass?

Unless you are willing to flush a gallon of beer along with the trub, then you need to have a narrower connection to prevent the beer above from rushing passed all the slower moving trub.

A simple hose barb connection will work. I'm also assuming you are using a conical FV of some sort.

I still have to dump multiple times though with the little 3 gallon FV I use. Sometimes I only get a small amount of trub before the beer begins to flow passed the trub.
Wow, so much easier to type when I'm not drunk! it is a conical fermenter. i put a restricter that reduces my 1.5" port to 1/2 inch.... I open the valve just enough to get things moving, and trub does come out. I guess my issues is I want to see a clear sight glass, like the youtube videos, but that is never the case. The videos always seem to get it done in one shot. Maybe I'm asking too much from the beer gods?!
 
I don't have a sight glass, just a 1.5 inch triclamp elbow at bottom. But I suspect that some of the solids stick to sides, so your trub dumps are probably successful, there is just some left behind. Anything in site glass is below racking port right? so it is not going to get in your finished beer.

If you're worried about it, try doing a second dump a few days later, and more solids will have accumulated.

For what it's worth, my conical has no restricter, just 1.5 inch elbow and then large butterfly valve.
 
I don't have a sight glass, just a 1.5 inch triclamp elbow at bottom. But I suspect that some of the solids stick to sides, so your trub dumps are probably successful, there is just some left behind. Anything in site glass is below racking port right? so it is not going to get in your finished beer.
Yes, it is below the racking port. I'm really splitting hairs with this whole issue, but I try to make sure I'm doing things properly since I see this "hobby" becoming my retirement job. :rock:
 
I guess another question is whether you've waited long enough for the trub to be compacted somewhat. It should come out almost as thick as toothpaste. I do my dumps with the main valve between the FV and sight glass open and all the weight of the beer pushing on the trub.
 
I guess another question is whether you've waited long enough for the trub to be compacted somewhat. It should come out almost as thick as toothpaste. I do my dumps with the valve open and all the weight of the beer pushing on the trub.
It's been settling for a week. I didn't cold crash it before dumping, but it was definitely like tooth paste. I think I'm going to cold crash and try again to see what happens. Afterall, I brewed a 12 gallon batch with a 10 gallon target anticipating losing some beer!
 
I never cold crash before dumping, I rack to kegs with a little fermentation left to go to naturally carbonate via "spunding". Right now I'm on my 10th batch with the same pitch of yeast in same sealed conical, so solids management and trub dumps are important. But it is not that complicated, and there is more than one way to make good beer.
 
I didn't cold crash it before dumping
I don't ever cold crash. I don't think that's important to the dumping process itself. Cold crashing AFAIK is more just for causing the yeast and other stuff to fall out of suspension faster so you can bottle sooner.

So if your trub was as thick as toothpaste, then maybe it's just you need to be more patient and do multiple small dumps till the sight glass is as empty as you'd like it.

I have the butterfly valve above the sight glass. A reducer below the sight glass with a 1/2" hose barb attachment. And a pinch clamp on a 6" length of tubing. I leave the butterfly open or slightly open as I'm currently trying to figure out what works best. Then I'll open the pinch clamp to let the trub out until the beer pushes through. Sometimes all I get is one little... turd, for lack of a better description. And it takes me a half dozen or so drops about a day apart to get it all out.

You can get clear beer and all the trub out if you are patient enough with small victories.
 
I like to soft crash to 60, dry hop at that temp x 2 days.
Are you using a conical and, if so, do you recirculate the hops? I've been dry hopping at 58-60F and believe that left alone, the hops will quickly settle to the bottom cone, restricting hop utilization. I currently recirculate for 5 minutes, once per day for 2 days before cold crashing but would consider eliminating the recirculation step if there was supporting evidence. There are several papers/articles regarding the benefits of recirculation but thought I'd ask to see if you have any additional insight you could share. Thanks.
 
Yea, I soft crash to 60 to drop out more of the yeast and create a greater mass to dump from my conical, and also because I like the hop oils extracted better at this temp. Have read and thought about recirc but just another way for things to go wrong .. O2, infection, clogging, etc. So can't speak from any experience with that process.

I do sometimes bubble CO2 up from the dump port to "rouse" dry hops but typically just shake the fermenter in circles to circulate worts around hops. Even when they layer down at the bottom (valve closed), I suspect hop compounds still extracted -- not sure they need to be suspended in the wort.
 
Yea, I soft crash to 60 to drop out more of the yeast and create a greater mass to dump from my conical, and also because I like the hop oils extracted better at this temp. Have read and thought about recirc but just another way for things to go wrong .. O2, infection, clogging, etc. So can't speak from any experience with that process.

I do sometimes bubble CO2 up from the dump port to "rouse" dry hops but typically just shake the fermenter in circles to circulate worts around hops. Even when they layer down at the bottom (valve closed), I suspect hop compounds still extracted -- not sure they need to be suspended in the wort.
Thanks for your reply. I’ve tried co2 hop rousing as well but concerned about purging all that hop aroma out of the conical. I ferment under about 10 psi, have a short path from the racking arm (beer out) through the pump (Topsflo TD-5) to the dump port (beer in), I purge the line with co2 and use tubing with low o2 permeability so I’m fairly confident that I’m keeping o2 to a bare minimum. I also give enough time after the hop drop to allow sufficient breakdown of the pellets before circulation to avoid clogging. It’s just another step in the process that I’d gladly omit if there was sufficient evidence to do so. I can’t help but feel that hop utilization is diminished when they quickly settle in the cone during a cool dry hop. The quest for better beer seems an ongoing work in progress.
 
This is a major frustation for me too using the Spike CF5. I'm only on my 3rd batch using the conical however after just finishing a 4gal batch NEIPA I cold crashed to 55F for a few days then dumped a good amount of yeast then added 6oz dry hops for a few days then cold crashed to 35F. I did numerous dumps opening the 2" valve very slowly. Mostly trub/hop matter with what appeared to be very little beer. However my 4gal batch only yielded 1.7gals!! After opening the conical there was still significant amounts of trub/hops all the way up to the racking arm with a fair amount stuck to the cone part of the conical sidewalls. I have a 90deg elbow attached to bottom of conical, then 2" butterfly valve, then 2" sight glass then 2" TC with 1" barb. If I didn't dump the yeast/trub the racking arm would have still been sitting in trub. Not sure there's a great balance to dumping enough trub and little beer imho.
 
This is a major frustation for me too using the Spike CF5. I'm only on my 3rd batch using the conical however after just finishing a 4gal batch NEIPA I cold crashed to 55F for a few days then dumped a good amount of yeast then added 6oz dry hops for a few days then cold crashed to 35F. I did numerous dumps opening the 2" valve very slowly. Mostly trub/hop matter with what appeared to be very little beer. However my 4gal batch only yielded 1.7gals!! After opening the conical there was still significant amounts of trub/hops all the way up to the racking arm with a fair amount stuck to the cone part of the conical sidewalls. I have a 90deg elbow attached to bottom of conical, then 2" butterfly valve, then 2" sight glass then 2" TC with 1" barb. If I didn't dump the yeast/trub the racking arm would have still been sitting in trub. Not sure there's a great balance to dumping enough trub and little beer imho.
For me, this is one of the most challenging tasks. My current process is to attach the butterfly valve to the conical dump port, then attach a 2" sight-glass and cap it with a gas post (no elbow used). The gas QD is connected to a piece 1/4" ID silicone tubing. Once soft crashed, I dump the yeast/trub VERY VERY SLOWLY. I don't try to purge the solids in one session as the liquid will invariably start to punch through. I tap the cone of the conical with a rubber mallet in between sessions but it's hard to tell if it has any effect. This is all done under 10-12 psi in the conical and I have the Spike short extension legs for clearance. The sight-glass never really clears and there's always some solids left behind in the cone. X-Ray vision would be a real help here but I'm not equipped. After the dump, I close the valve, disconnect the sight-glass and then proceed with the dry hop. Any success stories welcome.
 
I'm with you @ace0005 ... dumping trub is not as easy as it looks in the YouTube videos. I've got same fermentor and not sure I've reached best practice yet but here are some tips....

My favorite configuration is CF15 > elbow > butterfly > hose barb > 1/2 silicone hose
I don't use the sight glass anymore. For dumping yeast and dry hops it is easy enough to look at the material coming out of the hose.

I don't set a goal of dumping all the trub before kegging. Just looking to get it clear of the racking arm when the racking arm is in down position. There is already 0.6 gallons of beer in the cone that the racking arm can't reach. The sight glass and elbow are both about 0.08 gallons. So if you dump trub to the point of having everything clear with both the sight glass and elbow in use that is about 3/4 of a gallon of beer wasted.

For dumping cold break I just have a volume target. I believe it takes a very long time for cold break to settle but if I have 2-3 hours between filling the fermentor and pitching yeast (typical for me on a lager brew) I will dump a quart or two of murky wort and call it good enough.

For yeast and hops dumping slowly and a bit at a time works best for me. Dump slowly until what is coming out of the hose starts to thin. Then stop and come back later and take a bit more.

I overbuild my recipes to provide for dumping beer and lost in the bottom of the cone beer and am then still careful with amount of dumping I do and try to keep a running tally of how much beer is in the fermentor. I usually can get 3 full kegs out of CF15 even with a heavy dry hop load. For heavy dry hop beers I'll try to start with 17.5 gallons in the fermentor, and use an inline filter when kegging to deal with the bits and pieces of hop material that the racking arm will still manage to find.
 
In my experience, the only reasons for dumping trub out of a conical are: 1. to harvest yeast for a future batch and 2. to get the trub below the dip tube so you can transfer clear beer to the keg. I used to use a sight glass between the bottom of my conical and the butterfly valve, but found it to be pointless, because it was not telling me whether the dip tube was in the trub or above it. I just dump once after a week of fermenting and again shortly before I am ready to transfer to kegs after two weeks of fermenting. I dump trub out f the bottom (and as little beer as possible) until I start getting clear beer out of the dip tube/transfer valve. In addition, since all of my kegs have floating dip tubes, I'm not that concerned about getting some trub in the keg.
 
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