Whirlpool

[November]

I have a new system, derails in the thread in my sig, and I am trying to figure out the best way to whirlpool. Any ideas or experience would be appreciated.

I have a 20 g stout boil kettle with a tangential input with 40 plate plate chiller set up that I feed with ice water. I also use a trub filter set up before the chiller to catch hops and break. I want to whirlpool to get a cleaner runoff and make the filters job easier.

Ideally I want to whirlpool then cool single pass to fermenter but I am trying to figure out the specifics.

Here are my specific questions:

How long do you whirlpool? How long do you rest the wort after you whirlpool?

Do you cool while you whirlpool? Do you cool single pass or return cool wort (plate chiller only)?

Do you adjust hop amounts or times to account for the added time and utilization that might occur during the whirlpool?

Thanks.

 

[pvault98]

I have a Blichman 20 gallon that I installed a whirlpool port in with a 90 degree elbow on the inside. My process is I whirlpool for about 5 mins and then stop and let it settle for about 20 mins. You really only need to whirlpool long enough to get the wort spinning pretty well, the big benefit comes from how long you let it settle after the whirlpool step.

After that I drain it single pass through my plate chiller that I pump ice water through. If I look in the kettle after there is a significant hop and trub cone in the middle of the pot. I no longer filter before the plate chiller since using this method and I have never had it clog nor carried excess material into the fermenter. I have tried various other methods but this seems to be the winner.

I guess to some extent I adjust my hopping to account for this additional time, but honestly I have my recipes dialed in to where I like them. For example my IPA's are almost all whirlpool hops so in that recipe it is accounted for and the majority of my other beers are in the 30~ IBU range and are usually First Wort hopped so it is pretty irrelevant. I really don't have many recipes with hop additions between 5 and 60 mins. The other thing is after 60 mins the isomerization drops significantly so you want see a big change in bittering here, however if you have additions at 20-30 mins that are now going to sit another 30 mins, you will want to account for that.

 

[orangehero]

Best method with pump assisted hot whirlpooling is to stop the pump as soon as your wort is spinning as fast as you can get it it, because otherwise your pump is just going to be blending up the trub flocs into finer particles that don't clump and settle as well. You could do the whirlpool manually, but then you'd need a way to sanitize the pump.

 

[JAReeves]

This whirlpool method was used by a professional brewer I had the privilege of working with last month. I wasn’t sure it could be done at home on the stovetop without the danger of hot-side aeration.

Looking forward to using it with the IPA I am brewing this weekend, see how the hop flavors come through.

Glad this thread was still out there, waiting to deliver its knowledge, like the spark from scuffing your shoes on the carpet.