Filtering out hot break before fermentation?

[SoCal Surfer]

God Damn it. I never even worried about. I just stuck a ss scrubby over my copper tube leading to my valve and never worried. I switched to a plate chiller but I'm going to use my immersion chiller to get it to break first. Oh man. This could be why I don't have a ninkasi!

[HopFu]

I chill with my jamil style iwc recirculating with a pump and using ice water as needed to get to pitching temp. I used to let it sit for about 30 min and then rack clear beef to the fermenter. Last several brews I got lazy, skipped the 30 minute step, and just pumped everything into the fermenter. I didn't notice any off flavors, but the beers did so much worse in competition than in the past. I'm going back to my old method.

[BeaverBarber]

This is unnecessary. A study called "Effect of hot trub and particle addition on fermentation
performance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae." concludes that excessively bright worts are detrimental
to fermentation performance and might therefore also be detrimental to final beer quality. You can read all of the conclusions of that study at: http://www.aseanbiotechnology.info/Abst ... 026132.pdf Another study called, "Influence of Lauter Turbidity on Wort Composition, Fermentation Performance and Beer Quality" came to the same conclusion. I think I should mention that both studies were conducted by the same research scientist. So if you're like me, and some break material makes it into your fermenter, the studies show that you're not only alright, but there might even be some benefit.

[HopFu]

That is good to know. I'm trying my own experiment today. I brewed 10 gallons, racked 5 gal of clear wort to one carboy and 5 gal of wort/trub to the other carboy. Pitched the same yeast. I doubt that I will be able to tell the difference between the two.

[Ozwald]

It's well-known fact that trub contains several things good for yeast health, but not all off-flavors are products or byproducts of the yeast. I noticed a few oversights in the aforementioned paper, but that aside, they only tested something we've known all along. On a homebrew level it's nearly impossible to remove all of the trub from the wort before we put it into our fermentors & that residual turbidity is just fine. Putting it all in there is going to create off-flavors that have absolutely nothing to do with the yeast or yeast-derived byproducts. If your beer sits on something, it's going to leach flavors from it. Oak is a good example. Also, the good stuff you could get from trub can be added in other ways, like that yeast nutrient you should already be using. If that much trub had a bunch of positive effects & no negative effects why in the world would the pros be investing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into equipment that is solely designed to remove it, such as pre-filters & dedicated whirlpools? Because it has a greater negative effect than all of the positives combined.

In other words, get as much out as you can. There still will be some left in solution & again, that's fine. If yeast health/fermentation is a problem, trub is not the solution. There are plenty of tried/tested/proven ways to improve that without the negative effects trub presents.

[spiderwrangler]

I used to let it sit for about 30 min and then rack clear beef to the fermenter.

Mmmmm... clear beef. Reminds me of the SNL 'Crystal Gravy' commerical.

[baltobrewer]

I use a 5-gallon paint strainer bag as my whole hop strainer during the boil. When I chill, I stuff the paint strainer bag into my immersion chiller and run the recirc down into the middle of the bag. Seems to get most of it. After that, i don't worry much. Beers turn out great. Just my .02

[gwk453]

I don't know how to add pics here, but my polyester fiber method is simple. I don't use the gasket that goes on the screen dome assembly. That is my only change. Just place a thick wad of poly overhanging the bore of the HopRocket by a couple of inches. This wad serves the function of the gasket as you slide the screen and dome into the bore. Tuck the excess around the cage, and add another wad to fill around the cage and the remaining bore, up to the inlet pipe. Add back cover. It just takes a minute.

I have tried different ways of packing but this worked the best. My plate chiller issues have kind of gone away. You really need to go for that large elephant dump sized trub pile when using a plate chiller. Finally, reduce your pump flow. If you go balls to the wall with the pump, you will have problems.


Gary