So I just brewed my second batch of beer/ my first all-grain BIAB beer. I tried to filter out as much sediment from the kettle as possible but my carboy has an insane amount of trub at the bottom. I used a racking cane/siphon to transfer the wort from my kettle to my glass carboy after letting the wort chill to 72F. Does anybody have any tips on how to prevent all of this trub from collecting/ a better way to filter the wort while transferring it over to my carboy?
Way to much trub, whats the bet way to get the cleanest wort into my fermentor from kettle!!!!!!
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What kind of bag did you use? And did you use any whirlfloc? How much is an “insane” amount?
I don't know what type of bag it was, I just asked the guy at the brew store that I wanted to do a BIAB beer and he gave me whatever type of bag he had. I did not use whirfloc/ I don't really know what it is so that could be a problem. I had about 6 to 7in of trub. It's now all mixed up because the yeast has already started doing their thing. I know there is nothing I can do about it now for this batch but it's more for future batches.
A bag with a finer mesh (I use a Wilser bag) will help as well as a whirlfloc. You’ll probably be surprised how tight that will all settle out when your fermentation is done. Letting everything settle for half an hour to an hour before racking to your fermenter will help too.
Yes, if you’re just throwing your hops in commando. I don’t have any experience with a hop basket but I do use fine mesh nylon bags for my pelleted hops and don’t notice too much trub from that.
You can, but be sure to clean all the grains out after mashing and be careful not to scorch the bag on the bottom of the kettle. Honestly it'd be a PITA IMO.
Just go to home depot and get a paint strainer bag. They are really cheap. Clip that to the side of your kettle and toss your hops in there if you don't want to go commando anymore.
When it comes to hop bags/ baskets, don't you want some of the hops in the trub to give the wort flavor and aroma during the fermentation process and then wouldn't a brew bag or basket not allow that? Or is it once the hops have been put in the wort at a high temp then cooled they are just worthless and I should try to limit it as much as possible?
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My process is simple but effective. I BIAB and have done 65+ batches with this technique. Not my idea, I think I stole it from a LODO post. I chill to anywhere from 85-70 degrees, I use ground water until 100 or so then a pond pump with ice water. I then transfer almost everything to a 6 gallon bucket with a spigot (about 6.5-6.75 gallons to the brim). I then chill to pitching temp in my fermentation chamber.
Usually 2-4 hours later, the temp is there and the hot break/hops have settled out. I then do a second transfer into my Ss brewbucket, oxygenate and pitch. The first cup or two I toss, then clear wort until the last .5 gallon (what's left below the spigot). I adjust my volumes for this loss. Since I brew in the morning, the afternoon transfer is enjoyable with a pint or two
. There is still plenty of trub for yeast nutrition, and room under my pickup for dry hops to settle.
Usually 2-4 hours later, the temp is there and the hot break/hops have settled out. I then do a second transfer into my Ss brewbucket, oxygenate and pitch. The first cup or two I toss, then clear wort until the last .5 gallon (what's left below the spigot). I adjust my volumes for this loss. Since I brew in the morning, the afternoon transfer is enjoyable with a pint or two
. There is still plenty of trub for yeast nutrition, and room under my pickup for dry hops to settle.Ok thanks for the tip, will try to do this next time.My process is simple but effective. I BIAB and have done 65+ batches with this technique. Not my idea, I think I stole it from a LODO post. I chill to anywhere from 85-70 degrees, I use ground water until 100 or so then a pond pump with ice water. I then transfer almost everything to a 6 gallon bucket with a spigot (about 6.5-6.75 gallons to the brim). I then chill to pitching temp in my fermentation chamber.
Usually 2-4 hours later, the temp is there and the hot break/hops have settled out. I then do a second transfer into my Ss brewbucket, oxygenate and pitch. The first cup or two I toss, then clear wort until the last .5 gallon (what's left below the spigot). I adjust my volumes for this loss. Since I brew in the morning, the afternoon transfer is enjoyable with a pint or two
This may seem like a stupid question, but how long ago did you rack into your fermenter? Trub and yeast will naturally settle out and compact into the bottom; what may seem like a lot now will soon be probably less than 2" thick. The trub (literally hop bits, proteins, and gunk) as well as the yeast take a while to drop out of suspension. I bet it's a lot smaller in 12 hours.
After about 10 years of brewing, I just got myself a stainless steel hop spider, specifically when I do NEIPA's. I was tired of all the hop matter clogging up my counterflow chiller. I just got a chance to brew with it last weekend and I couldn't believe how well it worked. It trapped all of the larger hop debris and only the finer stuff got through. I got the smallest amount of trub into my car boy I've ever seen. It handled all 8.5oz of hops in a 5 gallon batch incredibly well.
madscientist451
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I just dump most of it in the carboy and don't worry about it. The heaviest particles will settle in the bottom of the kettle and I don't add that to the fermenter.
you really want to focus on a few things-
--get a good quality BIAB bag, and if you're mashing in the kettle, try not to mill too fine or you get alot of flour
-- use whirlfloc or irish moss or some other type of clarifier. give it at least 10 mins in the boil to work
--- chill as fast as you can. the faster you chill the harder the flocculation of the proteins, trub, etc.
-- whirlpool- here is where you can really keep trub out of your beer. i've made a rig with a cheap 12v dc pump off amazon, a bit of silicone tubing, and some stainless 90 and 180 barbs. i put in my immersion chiller, start up the pump and whirlpool whip during boil to sanitize for 5 mins, and then after killing the flame i go ahead and start chilling water.
the whirlpool i create with the pump does two things. first it circulates the wort and helps chill faster than if you just let the chiller sit, or just stir it up a few times. secondly the whirlpool action sucks finer trub down to the bottom of the kettle. after i pull the chiller i let the pump go for another 5-10 mins, and you get a nice tight trub cone in the center of the kettle. let it sit for a good 10 min once you stop the pump. then good to go. my transfers got way cleaner after that. i can even tilt the kettle a bit to get another pint or two as the trub is now in the center and not around the edges where the drain is located.
maybe 25 bucks of gear and huge improvement.
--get a good quality BIAB bag, and if you're mashing in the kettle, try not to mill too fine or you get alot of flour
-- use whirlfloc or irish moss or some other type of clarifier. give it at least 10 mins in the boil to work
--- chill as fast as you can. the faster you chill the harder the flocculation of the proteins, trub, etc.
-- whirlpool- here is where you can really keep trub out of your beer. i've made a rig with a cheap 12v dc pump off amazon, a bit of silicone tubing, and some stainless 90 and 180 barbs. i put in my immersion chiller, start up the pump and whirlpool whip during boil to sanitize for 5 mins, and then after killing the flame i go ahead and start chilling water.
the whirlpool i create with the pump does two things. first it circulates the wort and helps chill faster than if you just let the chiller sit, or just stir it up a few times. secondly the whirlpool action sucks finer trub down to the bottom of the kettle. after i pull the chiller i let the pump go for another 5-10 mins, and you get a nice tight trub cone in the center of the kettle. let it sit for a good 10 min once you stop the pump. then good to go. my transfers got way cleaner after that. i can even tilt the kettle a bit to get another pint or two as the trub is now in the center and not around the edges where the drain is located.
maybe 25 bucks of gear and huge improvement.
Which hop spider did you buy? I look at them all the time and haven't bought one yet.
I also do the setting method that Rcope mentioned. In my experience, the pellet hop material will float or suspend, so it is better to keep in in a basket or bag. The break material will settle out. So the settling works best when you keep as much of the hop material in the boil kettle and only transfer break material to the settling bucket. The wort is amazingly clear with this method.
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In my experience, whirlpooling and allowing a bit of time for settling will allow the hops to form a small cone settling centrally and not transfer. But the hot break is light and fluffy, most of it gets transferred no matter what. I use a hop spider when I use more than 6 oz of hops hot side (NEIPA'S for example), but still have a lot of trub. I do think it's related to the BIAB method and lack of filtering through a grain bed. I'm also a bag squeezer...but that's another thread .
Those with a conical and the ability to dump trub, yeast and hops don't have this bother. Nor do those that have a floating dip tube for a closed pressure transfer (Dgallo's fermonster, eg). With my process, the double transfer works well...YMMV
.Those with a conical and the ability to dump trub, yeast and hops don't have this bother. Nor do those that have a floating dip tube for a closed pressure transfer (Dgallo's fermonster, eg). With my process, the double transfer works well...YMMV
yeah, i think they're originally designed as solar hot water pumps. so food safe and high temp. you can literally search tan dc 12v pump home brew on amazon and they pop up. i went the with 24v model for extra oomph but for this purpose 12 is probably fine.Is it tan?
Monday we brewed/ racked into the fermenter.
I was just being a smarta$$ because of another thread where you discussed that pump.
Touché
Make a larger batch. I usually make a 7 gallon pre-boil volume, which becomes 6 gallons post-boil. After the chill, run off the first 5 gallons of "clearer" wort into your carboy. The final gallon which has most of the trub gets placed into a 1-gallon fermentor. You can ferment it out separately, usually it has a slightly sharper
taste from the hop debris and trub concentration than the main batch.
robertkerr79
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I get a lot of trub coming out of the kettle too (my kettle has a thermometer, heating element, bazooka, chiller and hop spider in it at the end of the boil so a manual whirlpool is tricky). I've taken to racking from the primary into my bottling bucket after fermentation, sanitising the primary, then racking back into it leaving the trub and spent yeast behind. Then I leave it to ferment a little longer followed by a couple of days of cold-crashing. Since starting that practice I've had my best brews with almost no sediment.
Racking does introduce an opportunity for oxidisation, but I've found that basic care not to splash it about during the racking has had good results.
Racking does introduce an opportunity for oxidisation, but I've found that basic care not to splash it about during the racking has had good results.
Yorkshire lad
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Use a wilsner bag to mash. Use a trub-trapper, and hop bags during the boil. Add a whirflock tablet or Irish Moss clarifier 5 mins before flame-out, then Chill as fast as you can. Whirlpool with paint stirrer and electric drill for 5 minutes, rest for 15 mins, then transfer by hose into your fermenter / carboy through a filter. Aerate the wert by splashing during the transfer. Happy Brewing
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Could you share a picture of your whirlpooling device and how it sits in the kettle please?
All of the above certainly help to reduce trub, but generally I just dump it all in and it sorts itself out in the end. The only time I reduce trub is if I know I am going to harvest the yeast.
Kettle is under bunch of junk as cleaning out storage area. This should give you idea.
I use a 5 gal bucket strainer. About 200 microns. I let the kettle settle for a couple hours. Then I open the spigot and let it pour thru a bucket strainer that is placed on top of my fermenter bucket. I do collect 4 quarts of clean wort from the spigot and set it aside. The reason is the bucket strainer is deep enough to touch the wort in the bucket, thus stopping the filter action. when the kettle is almost empty I then just dump all the trub into the bucket strainer and place the whole thing inside my ferm chamber. After a day the trub is caked in the strainer and removed and nothing but clean wort in the fermenter. Then I top off with the 4 quarts of wort and pitch yeast.
I'm not really answering your question but perhaps you are overthinking it. Congrats on your second batch. Welcome to the rabbit hole that is homebrewing!
https://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/
Here's what I've done for my last couple batches. After I pull the bag post-mash while the kettle is heating up to a boil, and through the boil, I dump the grains and thoroughly rinse the bag. I hang it up outside to dry which allows me to give it a good shake and almost all the stuck-on, dried grains release. I then stick the bag in a bucket of water/Oxiclean to soak for a while. I then rinse it off completely and stick it in another pale of water/StarSan. When it comes time to move the wort to the fermenter I put the bag inside the fermenter and transfer into it. I pull the bag and end up with very little debris in the fermenter. Seems to work quite well.
I got This One to use with my keggle. I like that it's adjustable depending on what batch size I'm doing.
Thanks for the link. I'm still on the fence because my issue is mostly cold break, not hop material. I brewed a 5.5 gallon pale ale this week and transferred 3.5 gallons of beautiful clear wort into the fermenter, but then to get full volume, I had to suck up a bunch of trub. I was really upset at first. The initial settling showed the trub at the gallon marker, but now a few days into fermentation it's only about an inch high. I can deal with that.
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