When to remove trub

[kohalajohn]

Does it matter when you remove the trub?

When you transfer from the kettle to the fermenter, you could just throw out the first liter and get rid of much of the trub that way.

Alternatively, you could transfer all the contents of the kettle, trub and all, into the fermenter. Then when you transfer from fermenter to the package, you leave the trub behind on the floor of the fermenter.

Since the equipment may make a difference, I'll mention that i have a Brewzill gen 4. The drain hole is in the middle of a concave bottom, which pulls trub down and out, effectively.

 

[Rish]

Hey, @kohalajohn . There's some discussion here that might give you some insight. As usual, different opinions. I dump it all in the fv. Good luck!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/when-should-i-whirlpool-for-a-clearer-beer.736083/post-10454217

 

[SFC Rudy]

I dump everything into the fermenter, it’ll settle out after fermentation

 

[worlddivides]

I dump everything into the fermenter, it’ll settle out after fermentation

Same.

 

[Bassman2003]

In short, the great brewing texts say to remove the trub before the fermenter. The boil is conducted to remove things from the wort and it is best to leave them behind in the boil kettle. A lot of this is centered around staling compounds (fatty acids, lipids, hot break/protein) that you do not want the yeast interacting with. Plus on the pro side, they want the repitched yeast to be free of trub for the next batch. So trub removal is standard practice.

Opinions are really centered around convenience rather than if it is right or wrong The prevailing argument is that trub is yeast food. A portion is but the rest is a negative. Now you know the two paths and as a homebrewer can make the choice.

But your chilling hardware can determine if it is easy to accomplish or not. The easiest way to leave the trub behind is to have a 20-40 minute "settling period" after you have chilled the wort. This lets everything settle to the bottom of the kettle and give you an opportunity to steal away the clear wort.

 

[kohalajohn]

Since my pump drains from the bottom of the bk, I suppose I would just direct the first liter, say, into the sink, then turn the hose into the fermenter.

 

[Bassman2003]

Yes. Settle the trub, redirect the first dirty bits and then continue with the clear stuff into the fermenter. It just takes some tactical thinking with the goal in mind.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm on the fence about it to be honest. Brulosophy:

Out of the three previous xBmts we’ve performed on this variable, the results from two have suggested higher amounts of kettle trub present during fermentation produced no perceptible differences in a Cream Ale or Vienna Lager, while tasters were able to tell apart a German Pilsner fermented with little trub from one fermented with a lot of trub after 5 weeks of aging. What was consistently observed in all past kettle trub xBmts is that higher amounts in the fermenter led to reduced lag, more vigorous fermentation, quicker attenuation, and better clarity in the finished beer, all arguably positive.

Kettle trub in the fermenter does seem to act both as a nutrient and fining agent. In the case of a very healthy yeast pitch, the nutrient aspect seems to get nullified but the fining behavior does not.

I ran a more comprehensive comparison for myself and found that the cleaner the wort going into the boil, the better. Then after that boil, putting all the trub into the fermenter ended up being a very good beer that was ready to drink much sooner. It SEEMS like a beer fermented on a LOT of kettle trub will stale faster but it's completely possible that you'll consume it all long before it's an issue and it will be clearer while you do that.

 

[corncob]

I have gone back and forth on this over the years, personally. I think I prefer nothing but clear wort into the fermenter, even if it were proven to be slightly detrimental to yeast performance.

My reasoning is that the trub takes up space in the fermenter--no trub = more beer--and harvesting yeast from the bottom (which is infinitely inferior to top cropping, but some strains just don't cooperate with top cropping) is way, way simpler.

In the past, when leaving everything that isn't clear wort in the kettle, I have had great results just scooping out about 3/4 of the yeast left on the bottom of a freshly emptied fermenter (which will be quite clean) then running new wort on top, without cleaning. That is lazy. Indulgent, even.

Both extremes make good homebrew.

 

[kohalajohn]

I have gone back and forth on this over the years, personally. I think I prefer nothing but clear wort into the fermenter, even if it were proven to be slightly detrimental to yeast performance.

My reasoning is that the trub takes up space in the fermenter--no trub = more beer--and harvesting yeast from the bottom (which is infinitely inferior to top cropping, but some strains just don't cooperate with top cropping) is way, way simpler.

In the past, when leaving everything that isn't clear wort in the kettle, I have had great results just scooping out about 3/4 of the yeast left on the bottom of a freshly emptied fermenter (which will be quite clean) then running new wort on top, without cleaning. That is lazy. Indulgent, even.

Both extremes make good homebrew.

I like the idea of the easy yeast harvest.

I often do a batch split in half. Take a six gallon recipe and make two batches of three gallons each, and two weeks apart. Then I am tasting the beer when making batch #2, so I know what to tweak. So that would be perfect for the second pitch. the second ferment would just explode

I don't need to worry abut space in the fermenter, as I'm only brewing three gallons in a five gallon corny keg. So I just transfer the full kettle contents into the fermenter

However, I am thinking that transferring all the kettle trub into the fermenter, and then two weeks later, transferring all the trub from the second kettle boil, into the same fermenter, makes for a very large amount of trub in the fermenter.

Maybe there is some compromise. I am pumping from the bottom of the kettle, so maybe I just shoot out the first cup or two, and then the rest goes into the fermenter

 

[Bramling Cross]

However, I am thinking that transferring all the kettle trub into the fermenter, and then two weeks later, transferring all the trub from the second kettle boil, into the same fermenter, makes for a very large amount of trub in the fermenter.

Yes, trub build up will be an issue if you go about it that way. Thirty years ago, when I first started experimenting with re-pitching, that seemed like the most elegant way to get the job done. But you do lose a lot of volume to trub build up and you need to pitch ever larger OGs onto your cake to avoid overpitching-derived flaws. It's just not a tenable path forward unless you want to go ordinary bitter to barley wine and you have a huge fermenter, or something like that. Belgian single to Tripple is another avenue where this works. There's a use for it, just not a lot of use cases for it.

After decades of iteration, I've settled on something similar to what @corncob does. However, rather than scooping out a bunch of stuff, then pitching on the remainder, I prefer to use a 1/2 pint Ball jar to scoop out a quantity of yeast and temporarily reserve it. I'll next swirl my fermenter vigorously, then dump the entire contents. Next, I'll rack into the fermenter and pitch the ball jar after oxygenating the wort and dosing it with two drops of zinc. This technique works quite well for lagers. I prefer to top crop ales for dumb reasons, but it also works nicely for ales.

Like @Bobby, I'm very much on the fence about the claims being made regarding the efficacy of trub. I do not doubt the conclusions made in laboratory conditions under scientific methodology. You'd have to be a fool to do so. I'm much more skeptical about Brulosophy's conclusions. Bluntly, I have reason to be skeptical because I have a track record of turning out very clear 1.048 lagers in just less than two weeks while doing my best to limit trub incursion within the fermenter. I was asked by one of the mods on this site to write up my proces and you can read about it here.

In short, I do try to limit trub ingress into the fermenter, but I'm not technically able to fully eliminate it, nor am I trying to fully eliminate it. I do believe that some is beneficial. However, I pump the brakes at claims that all the trub is necessary to see those benefits. Frankly, my iterative experience as a practical brewer suggests that just a little is perfectly fine. Again, my documented experience (although that experience is still awaiting independent confirmation) suggests that minimizing trub doesn't retard the beer's rate of fermentation, nor its ability to clear quickly, and it does undoubtedly increase BH efficiency.

Those are my practical thoughts on the matter, as an actual brewer of beer.

For the record, this is what one of my twelve day old lagers looks like. I use finings, but I do not filter. Did that once, never again!!!

 

[kohalajohn]

Yes, trub build up will be an issue if you go about it that way. Thirty years ago, when I first started experimenting with re-pitching, that seemed like the most elegant way to get the job done. But you do lose a lot of volume to trub build up and you need to pitch ever larger OGs onto your cake to avoid overpitching-derived flaws. It's just not a tenable path forward unless you want to go ordinary bitter to barley wine and you have a huge fermenter, or something like that. There's a use for it, just not a lot of use cases for it.

After decades of iteration, I've settled on something similar to what @corncob does. However, rather than scooping out a bunch of stuff, then pitching on the remainder, I prefer to use a 1/2 pint Ball jar to scoop out a quantity of yeast and temporarily reserve it. I'll next swirl my fermenter vigorously, then dump the entire contents. Next, I'll rack into the fermenter and pitch the ball jar after oxygenating the wort and dosing it with two drops of zinc. This technique works quite well for lagers. I prefer to top crop ales for dumb reasons, but it also works nicely for ales.

Like @Bobby, I'm very much on the fence about the claims being made regarding the efficacy of trub. I do not doubt the conclusions made in laboratory conditions under scientific methodology. You'd have to be a fool to do so. I'm much more skeptical about Brulosophy's conclusions. Bluntly, I have reason to be skeptical because I have a track record of turning out very clear 1.048 lagers in just less than two weeks while doing my best to limit trub incursion within the fermenter. I was asked by one of the mods on this site to write up my proces and you can read about it here.

In short, I do try to limit trub ingress into the fermenter, but I'm not technically able to fully eliminate it, nor am I trying to fully eliminate it. I do believe that some is beneficial, However, I pump the breaks at claims that all the trub is necessary to see those benefits. Frankly, my iterative experience suggests that just a little is perfectly fine. Again, my documented experience (although that experience is still awaiting independent confirmation) suggests that minimizing trub doesn't retard the beer's rate of fermentation, nor its ability to clear quickly, and it does undoubtedly increase BH efficiency.

Those are my practical thoughts on the matter, as an actual brewer of beer.

For the record, this is what one of my twelve day old lagers looks like. I use finings, but I do not filter. Did that once, never again!!!
View attachment 879462

Well, that is a damn fine looking pils.

 

[Bramling Cross]

Well, that is a damn fine looking pils.

Getting there.

 

[DBerg]

What do you fine with BC?

 

[Bramling Cross]

What do you fine with BC?

It depends.

If I can get a good deal on a 1kg jug of BioFine, I'll use that even though it's less effective than gelatin. I'm lazy and it's less hassle. Plus, I can use my little syringe for injection, which is less hassle.

I use grocery store gelatin just as often. It used to be a lot cheaper, but the gap is closing per dosage at grocery store prices. I need to look into a bulk solution for gelatin. In my experience, gelatin delivers superior results. It works faster and clears the beer a bit more completely.

Check out my post that I linked above. Finings alone are not a silver bullet, in my experience. You need to get your finishing pH right, have a means of crashing, and be able to crash without oxygen ingress. It's not hard, but it's more involved than just injecting a dose of finings into your keg. Finings won't deliver eye-opening results unless they're properly set up to do so. I found them frustrating until I became serious about knocking my pH down during the boil such that I achieved a proper post-boil pH.

 

[jerrylotto]

After the boil, I filter my wort through a 400 mesh bag into the fermenter and cool it in there. I always get a clean yeast harvest after fermentation is done.

 

[Broken Crow]

Since the equipment may make a difference, I'll mention that i have a Brewzill gen 4. The drain hole is in the middle of a concave bottom, which pulls trub down and out, effectively.

If I recall from your other posts, you have or were going to get a false bottom for this...just use it and add some Irish Moss (https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/additive-irish-moss.html) and this'll catch a large amount of the trub. Don't worry about the rest of it...like others; I find my brews to taste better with at least some of the trub in the fermenter.

 

[kohalajohn]

Yes, I did get the HED false bottom. It's a very good addition and I think should come with the original purchase. It makes the heating floor work properly, as it forces the wort to run over the entire floor. And it makes the recirculation system work properly, as the wort is no longer just being pulled down through the center of the bed.

I do add Irish Moss. And with the above two improvements from the HED I see that the original bottom plate has become an excellent trub catcher.

So I think I have the answer, for my system anyway, to my original question in this post. I don't need to divert trub from the kettle at all. But when I use a fermenter for a second ferment, I'll reach in and scoop out about half of the trub and yeast, before adding the wort.