# Massive Kettle losses :( Need advice



## Nizmoose (8/9/15)

I think I mentioned in another topic somewhere that I was having trouble with losses due to really lousy whirlpools and I'm still having problems. My set up is very basic and so are my methods so I'm basically looking for some simple suggestions to help reduce my losses. At the moment I am brewing 10-13L batches, nailing my mash efficiency but losing around 2L to trub and its breaking my heart. Yes I could just dump it all in but I'm after a resolution a little less crude. My methods are basically; Chill with an immersion chiller, get it down to around 20C before removing the chiller and giving the pot a good whirlpool with a spoon off the burner and letting it sit for around 30 minutes. After it has sat I use a siphon starting at the top and get brilliantly clear wort until with about 3L to go it starts getting cloudy, I then keep siphoning as long as I can bear (about 1L), cry, stop siphoning, look into the pot helplessly, cry again. 

All I am using is BIAB with a 19L pot, no ball valve just a siphon from going from the kettle to the fermenter, my 'trub cones' are more like pancakes and I dont use whirlfloc (will start if people think it'll help the WP?).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.


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## seamad (8/9/15)

I've found the brewbrite kettle fining to be better than whirfloc. I don't whirlpool anymore either, just let it all settle and drain, measured the trub via both methods and was fuckall difference. I get less than 2l usually from double batches.


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## n87 (8/9/15)

In my experience the whirlfloc creates clear wort, and trub.
there is no middle ground

Worth a try... not expensive.


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## Danscraftbeer (8/9/15)

Wirfloc works well I use it every time. Just for shared reference I have a keggle and without tilting it will drain leaving behind 4lt of trub. I factor that in, its all muck. The 4lt leftover trub then gets bottled (3lt apple juice bottles) then cold crashed. Then I pour the clear wort into a clean bottle and frozen for later use for starters, or you could add it to the next brew boil. I usually get under 2lt clear wort from the 4lt of trub. The muck left over from that goes into compost. I hate to waste any.


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## Rocker1986 (8/9/15)

I think a kettle fining such as Whirlfloc or Brewbrite would be quite useful in this situation. I gave up whirlpooling as well and just let the wort sit for 15 mins post flameout, though I am gonna return to tilting my urn backwards slightly at flameout to encourage the shit to settle away from the tap outlet. I don't know why I ever stopped doing that but it always resulted in leaving bugger all behind in the urn after draining to the cube.


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## antiphile (8/9/15)

You could attack it on several fronts. Firstly, the use of a kettle fining, as suggested by seamad and the very good looking n87, is a great idea. Personally, I'm a Brewbrite fan, but whirlfloc or DeltaFloc-T etc, or Irish Moss or whatever will improve your results for not only the amount you drain from the kettle, but also in final clarity.

Another way to increase the wort volume is a differently shaped stock pot from the Woolies one; but it will cost you more.It'd be helpful to get one that is taller than its wide - but money may be an issue.

It is really easy to install a ball valve and that will really help to minimise the crap going into the FV (see one of the many YouTube vids etc).. The valve itself might cost around $25 or a bit more for SS, but will give you much more flexibilty to put in a pick arm etc, and slow down the drainage rate significanty to minimise trub disturbance.

Failing any of those options, all I can suggest is to make the end of boil volume a few litres more and accept the losses.

Cheers


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## antiphile (8/9/15)

Danscraftbeer said:


> Wirfloc works well I use it every time. Just for shared reference I have a keggle and without tilting it will drain leaving behind 4lt of trub. I factor that in, its all muck. The 4lt leftover trub then gets bottled (3lt apple juice bottles) then cold crashed. Then I pour the clear wort into a clean bottle and frozen for later use for starters, or you could add it to the next brew boil. I usually get under 2lt clear wort from the 4lt of trub. The muck left over from that goes into compost. I hate to waste any.


Fantastic tip about using the leftovers for starters. Thanks for that Dan!
Why haven't I ever thought of that? (-a-) Stupidity; (-b-) Ignorance; or (-c-) Inability to train an old dog.


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## yum beer (8/9/15)

I also brew smaller batches, around 14-16 litres normally and low efficiency is part and parcel of that process.
I use whirlfloc religiously, as in all the time, not with a prayer and utterance to virgins and such....and get lovely clear wort but do lose a bit to crud. 
I boil in a keggle and have not got around to putting in a tap and bits....have them all in a box, a dusty box....but I use an immersion chiller then once cool tip keggle into one of the newer coopers fermenters, the tap sist at 3 litres, then let sit for 15 minutes, I can get most of the wort out the tap then with a gentle tip I can get most of the rest without upsetting the trub on the bottom.
I allow 1 litre of loss in my calculations.
I work on 58% eff. with my system which is not great but mostly due to losses through the entire process. A litre here and there adds up when start with lower amounts.
I say get the clearest wort out you can, allow extra grain if you need to go a little over gravity and water down.
It probably costs me 1/2 kilo extra grain using my current system, but I get consistent results and am happy with my process. 
Supposedly a little crud helps the ferment anyway and it finishes in the bottom of the FV not in the beer you drink.


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## MHB (8/9/15)

Another BrewBright fan, but like all kettle finings more isn't better, there is a right dose and all the other doses as this picture illustrates



For a bit more reading try these two View attachment Protafloc Tablets.pdf
and View attachment PolyclarBrewbrite.pdf
.
There is a bit more to it than just the right dose, the optimum pH and how and when you add kettle finings play a very important role .

The other big problem a lot of BIAB brewers encounter is to some extent of their own making,
Try not grinding the grain too fine, a lot of flour can go through some bags. Which apart from just increasing the amount of trub can add quite a lot of starch to the boil (if you have issues with kettle foaming this is a likely cause).
*Don't *squeeze the bag!
There can be a lot of high molecular weight protein in among the malt and squeezing can add a lot of it to the kettle where it becomes trub.
If you can at the end of mashing recirculate the sweet water through the grain to trap flour and HMW protein, then let the bag drain slowly back to the kettle you might see a large reduction in your trub loadings. 
If you sparge watch the sparge temperature and pH, again you can extract a lot of extra trub forming material if your temp and pH are too far out of bounds.
Hope this helps.
Mark


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## 5150 (8/9/15)

I'm not sure if you already use one, but I recently bought a couple of hop spiders. I brew fairly big batches and I have found these have been great. There is still a bit of hops material that gets through but I have reduced my kettle loss massively. 1cm in my kettle is 2.5L, so it adds up quickly. I also use whirlfloc and I've found that a decent cold crash results in nice clear beer in the glass.


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## manticle (8/9/15)

A good kettle fining and good whirlpool technique should see separation of wort and trub but even so, there will always be a bit left behind. What dan has described is exactly what I do.


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## Topher (8/9/15)

Who sells Brewbite in sydney?


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## Yob (8/9/15)

Cube hopping for me reduced my kettle losses to ~250ml with a decent whirlpool... 

Only kettle additions I do are for bittering.. 

(brewbrite addition notwithstanding)

Ed. Exclusive no chiller

Ed. Ed.. Exclusive 75 output


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## Topher (8/9/15)

Hey yob. Has that just transferred the problem op is talking about though? I mean your kettle losses might be tiny, but are you fermenter or cube losses bigger?


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## danestead (8/9/15)

As said above, it would help to slow down your siphon so the hop cone doesn't pancake out as easily.

2L loss to trub isn't bad, I'd be happy with that.


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## Nizmoose (9/9/15)

Wow thanks for all the great replies, I think I'll combine some of these suggestions starting with a kettle fining and a tilted pot. 2L doesn't seem too much but for example yesterday it was a 23% loss in volume to trub and that probably puts it into perspective, not ideal. My siphon is actually quite slow, the tubing attached is about 5mm diameter maybe 8mm at the most, it's more that a cone never seems to form.


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## Yob (9/9/15)

Topher said:


> Hey yob. Has that just transferred the problem op is talking about though? I mean your kettle losses might be tiny, but are you fermenter or cube losses bigger?


Nope


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## MHB (9/9/15)

A good kettle fining will make a big difference.
in your OP 2L loss in 13L comes to about 15% kettle loss, I thought that was pretty bad and would expect something less than 10%, but a 23% loss is really a problem. The smaller the system the bigger the losses proportionally, but giving up nearly a quarter of your beer is ridiculous.
I would be taking a long hard look at my water chemistry, Adelaide water is notorious it might be worth doing a brew or two in purified water with customised salt additions.
A blend of CaCl and CaSO4 is a good starting place, make sure you get at least 100ppm of Ca into your water and there are some real benefits to adding some acid. I'm lucky to live in a town with really brilliant brewing water, I still like to add Ca but have been using a Calcium Lactate/Lactic acid buffer complex to get the extra Ca and the right pH, CaLac/Lac Acid is a really powerful buffer so it locks the pH in where I want it.
Last Thursday I did a 120L batch of mild; being low gravity low hop beer the trub loss were smaller than usual, about 3L, 3L/120L gives me a loss of 2.5%, in bigger hoppier beers on the same system kettle loss is about 5%.

Just following up on a couple of suggestions from above: -
Tilting the pot, can help but only if you do have a nice tight trub cone already formed, don't tilt the pot while whirlpooling it throws the whole dynamics of the whirlpooling action out and will inhibit cone formation.
I am very leery of hop spiders and false bottoms and the like in kettles, it is really easy to filter out hop debris but nearly impossible to separate out Hot Break by filtration, not even big commercial brewers can do so easily.
I would concentrate on fixing the problem rather than investing in prophylactics of very questionable virtue. 
Mark


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## NewtownClown (9/9/15)

Danscraftbeer said:


> Wirfloc works well I use it every time. Just for shared reference I have a keggle and without tilting it will drain leaving behind 4lt of trub. I factor that in, its all muck. The 4lt leftover trub then gets bottled (3lt apple juice bottles) then cold crashed. Then I pour the clear wort into a clean bottle and frozen for later use for starters, or you could add it to the next brew boil. I usually get under 2lt clear wort from the 4lt of trub. The muck left over from that goes into compost. I hate to waste any.


You can also use it for Krausening your beer and Forced Fermentation Tests


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## Diesel80 (9/9/15)

oh man my losses are 6L-7L of gunk in the bottom of the pot since installing my ball valve.
Should have drilled lower...

Of that there is probably a good 4L of wort. 75L pot.

I allow for this in the losses to trub section of the brewmate program. If i control my boil to hit target volume i get my two cubes. They are clearer than prior when i used to siphon so I am happy.

If i chilled the trub overnight i could get a couple more litres of wort, could use for starters, but i seen no reason this could not be split between fermentation vessels to offset the losses in the kettle. There are worse practices out there turning out good beer.

Cheers,
D80


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## droid (9/9/15)

The 90degree pick up tube is very handy. For anyone just using the tap and losing wort to trub consider one. It basically threads onto the tap thread with a hole out the end where you then insert the 90deg bit of pipe. You can spin it around to get it at the level you want. It works just like a siphon in that once you have flow it will pull below the tap level. A must on a keggle IMHO
Ed> btw cold crashing drops the hops out if you have that luxury


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## stux (9/9/15)

BrewBrite helped me,

But switching to a 3V with recirculation and boiling clear wort really really helped reduce the trub losses.

Then I also added a blichman hop-blocker, and I further reduced my losses to about 6L in a 75L batch. Basically that's 5mm left in a 100L kettle.

Consider a false bottom or some sortof filter to aid getting the last drops, after going to brewbrite and perhaps a recirculating system to clean up the wort.


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## kaiserben (9/9/15)

Nizmoose said:


> losing around 2L to trub and its breaking my heart.


I used to BIAB in a 19L pot and was pretty much the same. 2L trub is pretty standard isn't it? Just something you have to accept. 

My solution was to move to a bigger system (in my case a Grainfather). I still get ~2L trub, but have 23L going into my fermenter instead of ~9.5L, so it doesn't seem like such a dramatic loss.


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## Bribie G (9/9/15)

Topher said:


> Who sells Brewbite in sydney?


I couldn't find any at ESB last year when I was in there. MHB used to sell it, so try Brewman (in the Hunter) ... reasonable freight rates.


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## stux (9/9/15)

Bribie G said:


> I couldn't find any at ESB last year when I was in there. MHB used to sell it, so try Brewman (in the Hunter) ... reasonable freight rates.


I'm in Sydney and get mine from Craftbrewer. Also gotten it from MHB in the past.


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## Weizguy (9/9/15)

Danscraftbeer said:


> Wirfloc works well I use it every time. Just for shared reference I have a keggle and without tilting it will drain leaving behind 4lt of trub. I factor that in, its all muck. The 4lt leftover trub then gets bottled (3lt apple juice bottles) then cold crashed. Then I pour the clear wort into a clean bottle and frozen for later use for starters, or you could add it to the next brew boil. I usually get under 2lt clear wort from the 4lt of trub. The muck left over from that goes into compost. I hate to waste any.


I tip the sludge from the keggle into a 5 litre bucket (food grade) and filter it into a number of other containers through a large kitchen sieve.
May need to pour through twice until the sieve establishes a filter bed.

Then into fruit juice bottles or PET/soft drink bottles and into the freezer.
Hardly any waste. Good for yeast starters, after dilution if required..


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## Nizmoose (9/9/15)

MHB said:


> A good kettle fining will make a big difference.
> in your OP 2L loss in 13L comes to about 15% kettle loss, I thought that was pretty bad and would expect something less than 10%, but a 23% loss is really a problem. The smaller the system the bigger the losses proportionally, but giving up nearly a quarter of your beer is ridiculous.
> I would be taking a long hard look at my water chemistry, Adelaide water is notorious it might be worth doing a brew or two in purified water with customised salt additions.
> A blend of CaCl and CaSO4 is a good starting place, make sure you get at least 100ppm of Ca into your water and there are some real benefits to adding some acid. I'm lucky to live in a town with really brilliant brewing water, I still like to add Ca but have been using a Calcium Lactate/Lactic acid buffer complex to get the extra Ca and the right pH, CaLac/Lac Acid is a really powerful buffer so it locks the pH in where I want it.
> Last Thursday I did a 120L batch of mild; being low gravity low hop beer the trub loss were smaller than usual, about 3L, 3L/120L gives me a loss of 2.5%, in bigger hoppier beers on the same system kettle loss is about 5%.


Yeah my normal batch size is around the 13L mark this one was a 10L (I might have said 13 in the op) so almost a quarter loss to trub.


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## Barge (9/9/15)

I think it's all been said here but i thought I'd chime in to hopefully add some clarity.

Imagine that 2L lost to trub is pretty standard. That the loss is due somewhat by the amount of trub but also the deadspace in the kettle. I know the OP siphons but it's usually a factor.

At any rate, if i lose 2L in a 10L batch, i have lost 20%. If i am able to scale up to 100L, i would only lose 2% with a 2L loss. Even with a 5L loss I've only lost 5%.

I know this is obvious but small batch brewing is disproportionately affected by losses than large scale. It goes with the territory. 

Now, you could obviously employ some of the great advice in this thread to keep the same volume and reduce your losses but the best thing you could do is to scale up to a larger volume as quickly as your budget allows.


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## micblair (9/9/15)

Lots of good suggestions re. kettle finings, however you might want to address the losses upstream. 

- Are you getting clear wort at the end of your mash? 
- Are you using malts which are well modified, and don't have excessive protein levels?
- Are you overloading your kettle with hops?
- What's your boil off rate -- is evaporation contributing to your reduced yield?


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## Eagleburger (9/9/15)

Like a few others i just brewed more. Anyway, I have about 6L of dead space, so I just tilt the kettle and end up with 3L trub. If I could be bothered I put it in a bottle overnight and claim a litre from it for starters. 

I would just tip teh lot in the fermenter, but I like to live dangerously.


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## Nizmoose (9/9/15)

Barge said:


> I think it's all been said here but i thought I'd chime in to hopefully add some clarity.
> Imagine that 2L lost to trub is pretty standard. That the loss is due somewhat by the amount of trub but also the deadspace in the kettle. I know the OP siphons but it's usually a factor.
> At any rate, if i lose 2L in a 10L batch, i have lost 20%. If i am able to scale up to 100L, i would only lose 2% with a 2L loss. Even with a 5L loss I've only lost 5%.
> I know this is obvious but small batch brewing is disproportionately affected by losses than large scale. It goes with the territory.
> Now, you could obviously employ some of the great advice in this thread to keep the same volume and reduce your losses but the best thing you could do is to scale up to a larger volume as quickly as your budget allows.



This does make sense to a degree, what I don't quite understand is why trub should be relatively standard, I'm certainly not arguing that it isn't but I would have intuitively guessed that the more grain and hops you used, the more trub you would end up with in a fairly linear trend as there is simply more malt protein and hop matter. With regards to larger batches as budget allows its not so much equipment but a desire for variety that keeps me brewing small batches, I love making a slab and a half of a beer and having 5 different selections as opposed to 2 or 3. Its not so much my lack of beer that is killing me its the loss of potential beer that may be possibly saved with little to no extra effort 



micblair said:


> Lots of good suggestions re. kettle finings, however you might want to address the losses upstream.
> 
> - Are you getting clear wort at the end of your mash?
> - Are you using malts which are well modified, and don't have excessive protein levels?
> ...


Some interesting points here, I BIAB and no, I get fairly cloudy wort and my pre-boil gravity samples do have a noticeable amount of protien in them floating around.

I'm assuming Im using well modified malts as I'm using modern Briess/Weyer/etc
RE Excessive protein levels: I do employ a mash schedule which is strong on protein rests which is something I haven't thought about. Im resting at 54 for 10 and 70 for 45 (70 being more for alpha than for protein) but I'm ot actually sure if this plays a part in precipitation of proteins or just strengthens/modifies the protiens that are in solution in the final beer?

Definitely not overloading with hops, The batch in the original post was 10L and used a grand total of 17g of hops haha

My boil off rate is somewhat alarming but also calculated for. Well its not alarming at all in terms of volume but it is as a percentage. around 3L/hr which is around the 23% mark but I mash with 14L, lose 1L to grain, pre-boil is 13L, boil down to 10L, lost 2.3L to trub, Fermenting 7.7L and will probably get 7L packaged. For my normal 13L batch that would look like 17.5L mash, 1.5 loss to grain, 16L boil, 13L post boil, 11-12L into fermenter.


EDIT: After reading this I realise that I should mention that it is nit so much the amount of trub created that is the problem but the lack of seperation. When I say i lose 2L to trub the trub in the kettle is very thin in terms of viscosity i.e. there is plenty of beer in there I just cant get it out without sucking up all the trub. So my main issue is getting that trub more tightly seperated so that more clear wort will come away before I start sucking up trub.


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## Barge (9/9/15)

I haven't got a good answer to the non-linear nature of trub production. I don't have any personal experience with larger batches so I'm only going by what I've read/heard about. I lose 2L, mainly due to desdspace and no pickup tube or screen. I have no problem with trub in the fermenter but knowing that it ends up as a loss i figure it may as well stay in the kettle.

Having said that, your best option may be to transfer the lot to the fermenter. After fermentation you can cold crash the FV and get a more settled layer of yeast/trub so when you package you won't lose as much beer.


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## MHB (10/9/15)

Barge said:


> I haven't got a good answer to the non-linear nature of trub production. I don't have any personal experience with larger batches so I'm only going by what I've read/heard about. I lose 2L, mainly due to desdspace and no pickup tube or screen. I have no problem with trub in the fermenter but knowing that it ends up as a loss i figure it may as well stay in the kettle.
> 
> Having said that, your best option may be to transfer the lot to the fermenter. After fermentation you can cold crash the FV and get a more settled layer of yeast/trub so when you package you won't lose as much beer.


Wrong seriously and fundamentally bad brewing practice!

One of the main reasons for boiling a wort is to coagulate and remove excess particularly high molecular weight protein. To suggest adding it to the fermenter is very bad advice. I've posted this link lots of time but here it is again View attachment 02 - The function of wort boiling1.pdf
FFS read it before offering advice on a subject you clearly don't understand.

Nizmoose
Apart from trying some of the ideas suggested earlier, from your last post it, would help if you could turn the heat down, you only need 8-10% evaporation to achieve all the goals of good wort boiling, boiling harder will coagulate more protein, some of it protein that you want to keep in the beer to add body, improve head and provide good yeast nutrition.
Mark


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## Barge (10/9/15)

MHB said:


> Wrong seriously and fundamentally bad brewing practice!
> 
> One of the main reasons for boiling a wort is to coagulate and remove excess particularly high molecular weight protein. To suggest adding it to the fermenter is very bad advice.


Why? The only statement that even remotely supports your belief is

"Proteins which combine with unoxidised polyphenols are soluble in boiling wort but precipitate when chilled and can give rise to chill haze and cold break. The polyphenols _*may*_ subsequently oxidise during beer processing and may produce colloidal instability in packaged beer." 

This can only occur if the protein-polyphenol complexes are in the packaged beer. As they are insoluble in beer, and not in the packaged beer, as they are left in either the kettle or the fermenter, then this concern is minor. Particularly in the context of the O.P.'s scenario. He's brewing a carton of beer FFS (yes, I can swear at people on the internet too). I'm not too sure that he's worried about colloidal instability.

But what about "off flavours" I hear you cry?

No mention of that in your article the article that you found that applies more to large scale breweries.

What is mentioned is

"The DMS released during boiling is rapidly lost through evaporation. However, the breakdown of S-methyl methionine continues during the period between the end of boiling and wort cooling. The DMS released is not lost and persists into the finished beer. It is, therefore, possible to control the level of DMS by varying the duration of boil and whirlpool stage.

Methods of control DMS levels in beer:
• use malt with low S- methyl methionine levels.
• long wort boiling time to decompose precursor and vaporise DMS.
• short whirlpool stand time to reduce decomposition of the precursor.
*• rapid wort cooling – reducing the time the wort is held hot.*
• use wort stripping after the whirlpool stand to remove DMS."

Quick, better go tell all the no-chill brewers that they're full of shit and their beers are (excuse the technical terms but I'm trying to establish my superiority and I haven't got any science-y articles to link to) "chocka's full of DMS".

Oh wait, here's an article that discusses the effect of wort turbidity linky

They state that

"According to Sommer the influence of wort turbidity on beer quality is often overestimated. For example in his investigations fast and turbid lautering did not lead to a deterioration of flavour quality of the resulting beer.111 In the extensive large-scale trials mentioned previously, Schur and Pfenninger evaluated the influence of different lauter regimes (turbid, clear) and lauter durations (long, short) on the flavour quality of the resulting beers. Related to lauter turbidity and duration they found the following order with decreasing sensory quality of the fresh beers: “turbid/short”, “turbid/long”, “clear/short”, “clear/long”. When the same beers were aged for 5 weeks at 25°C the order was as follows: “turbid/long”, “clear/ short”, “turbid/short”, “clear/long”. In contrast, Mück reported a negative influence of turbid lauter worts connected with high fatty acid amounts prior to wort boiling and high oxygen content on beer flavour and observed an unpleasant bitterness which most probably did not depend on fatty acids. Here, the influence of turbidity seemed to be bigger than that of oxygen. In contrast, Whitear et al. explained that the effect of lipids was overestimated and weighs much less than the oxygen pick-up during wort production"

Also,

"In conclusion, many authors support that the removal of fatty acids from wort, as far as possible, is favourable for flavour stability. According to Zangrando clear lautering is obligatory to providing good flavour stability. On this point Schur and Pfenninger partly disagree as they found that beers produced from extended lautering and very clear worts performed the worst in taste testings of fresh and aged beers."

Which basically states that wort turbidity is complex and produces a highly variable effect on beer flavour quality. They report similar variation in terms of flavour stability and foam stability.

One of their concluding statements

"most of the authors pointed out the positive influence of cloudy wort in terms of yeast metabolism and fermentation performance. At the same time, however, the adverse consequences of high lauter turbidity for the final beer quality, particularly for flavour and foam stability, were thoroughly discussed. Since the negative consequences seemed to outweigh, this led to the preference of high wort clarity, and this has been generally accepted among brewers until today."

Given that the main issue is one of stability, I question the impact this will have on nizmoose's beer.

Here's a related experience on a small scale
http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/

Here's what they found

"The assumption that clearer wort in the fermentor leads to clearer beer in the end appears to be false, at least based on the results of this exBEERiment, with all samplers agreeing that Truby was brighter than Non-Truby."

Additionally,

"For those who tend to prefer clearer and crisper beers with potentially sharper bitterness, consider not worrying too much about the amount of kettle trub you transfer to the carboy. Alternately, those who enjoy slightly smoother bitterness and don’t mind a bit more haze in their beer may want to continue investing a little more effort in transferring only the clearest wort to their fermentor." 

Again, if you like your information to be more authoritative then the effect of adding trub to fermentation vessels was also reported here.

They found that 

"The *addition of hot trub* of various origins to yeasts of various vitalities *leads to* higher cell counts in suspension and consequently, to *higher fermentation performance*. In summary, hot trub addition is beneficial to yeast of either, high vitality (e.g. propagated/assimilated yeast), or low vitality (e.g. after several fermentation cycles). Further, *the more hot trub* or particles are added, *the more advantageous for fermentation*."

Admittedly, they concede that

"potential consequences for final beer quality are somewhat [beyond] the scope of this paper and have to be considered when applying hot trub in practical operations."

None of this means that fermenting on trub is 'fundamentally bad brewing practice!". It means that nizmoose should listen to and do whatever the **** he want's to enhance his enjoyment of this hobby. 

Or just PM Mark every time you have a question.

Before you start slagging off at people you might want to consider that you don't know everything. 

EDIT: Before the flaming starts I want to point out that

i) I have a Science degree, have worked as a scientist, I understand science.
ii) Peer reviewed journals are fundamental for the rigor that is necessary in the execution of good Science
iii) Science can be performed by anyone, anywhere, anytime. I'm not saying that the blog "proves" anything about fermenting on trub. I'm aware it's one persons experience. FWIW, I think that it is one of his better experiments but I place no statistical significance in his findings. I include it as it shows the potential for nizmoose to minimise system losses whilst having a potentially minimal impact (positive or negative) on beer quality.


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## MHB (10/9/15)

The article I posted is from the IBD training material freely available to anyone who wants to learn a bit about brewing, I realise that it is fairly basic and not a peer reviewed journal but it is written by a master brewer (PhD equivalent in brewing) and published by the organisation that presents as much or more peer reviewed brewing research than any other - not some blogger.

You have linked to the peer reviewed JIB paper that kicked off the whole question about wort turbidity.
You will notice that it deals mostly with the turbidity of sweet water going to the kettle, for some reason a few home brewers have rather questionably taken this to be about kettle wort.
Just so we understand what we are talking about here is an illustration of the turbidity standards in FTU/NTU


Note in the conclusion to the paper that the authors are talking about turbidity's under 10EBC going *TO* the kettle as being problematic, 1EBC is 0.25FTU/NTU so 2.5 on the scale illustrated (between the far right sample and the margin). That's a hell of a long way from being a supporting argument for dumping all the hot break into the fermenter.

We all know a little (0.1-0.2 ppm) of Zinc is important, actually its vital, so would adding 500ppm of zinc to a wort be a good idea - no it would poison the yeast.
Is a little hot break going to ruin the beer - no. A little hot break will always make it into the fermenter, but like the zinc question does a little being beneficial mean a lot is a good idea?
Saying yes is very much what I think of as Bad Science!

As for saying the training information I posted doesn't say lots of hot break is bad, of the opening 4 bullet points, the second one means "We boil a wort to reduce protein" that is listed before getting what we want out of hops and reducing volatiles (a different conversation) and no you couldn't hear me crying about it, not relevant to the question in hand.
Suggesting that someone add all the condensed protein back to the fermenter is ridiculous, clearly wrong and very bad brewing practice.

I have to head off to a brewery now, got some beer to filter and get kegged, a pump to service and a bit of welding to do if the Argon holds up.
Mark


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## danestead (10/9/15)

MHB, just let him dump the whole lot into his fermentor and 'enjoy' his beer!


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## Nizmoose (10/9/15)

If I can chime in before people die I think both MHB and Barge make reasonable points and I take bits away from both arguments. The big take home for me is to find a way to get better kettle efficiency and to not stress immensely about getting a LITTLE bit of trub in the fermenter but at the same time ensuring most remains in the kettle


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## Vini2ton (10/9/15)

I'm sure I've read something about just this topic of fermenting on trub. It said something along the lines of that it did not matter much and most people with strong opinions of said topic were bottle-fed anyway. You're not Heineken. Brewbrite rules ok.


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## Nizmoose (5/10/15)

Okay time for some follow up and its not good. Today I brewed a 1.070 IPA and it was my first chance to give whirlfloc a try. Added about a third of a tablet with 5 mins left of the boil. It was a tiny 7 L batch and a third of a tab fits perfectly to the recommended dosage. I chilled the wort down to 25C in 10 mins then let the pot sit for about 20 minutes tilted. Came back and not only had the protein not settled out better than previous batches but it was by a country mile so much worse. All the trub was maybe 5mm from the surface and not moving down. I tried a whirlpool then another 20 minute rest, no improvement. So to get my wort into the fermenter I sat there pissed off with a strainer and siphon filling the strainer with shit, stopping the siphon, clearing the shit, restarting the siphoning, clearing shit, etc. So much worse than previous batches. I took a lot of crap into the fermenter but still left over a litre behind after I got sick of straining wort. I left it in the pot and cleaned up, went to the girlfriends and came back and the shit was still sitting almost at the top of the remaining wort. I'm genuinely at a loss on what to do. The only thing I can think of is that a 1.070 wort was more dense than the trub and protein but I'm having a hard time believing it. Sooooo many people here seem to get crystal clear wort into the fermenter, I'm not chasing crystal clear, just something I dont have to run through a god damned strainer for 30 minutes to get anything into the fermenter... Rant over


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## Nizmoose (5/10/15)

For reference here's a picture after a 20 minute sit. Absolutely useless!


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## Diesel80 (5/10/15)

Niz,
I use whirfloc in kettle.
in a 60L boil with 54L in kettle at end i use 2x tablets and put them in at 10 to go.
I whirlpool hot and the stuff works! Biggest beer was 1.060.
I start a whirlpool, lid on and walk away. Come back and it looks awesome and then i no chill into the cubes.

I wouldn't be without it.

Edit: perhaps because you are chilling you are getting cold break in kettle too, whereas my cold break will form in cube / fermenter?

Cheers,
D80


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## manticle (5/10/15)

I use half a tab in 23ish litres so I'm not sure you are using the prescribed dosage nizmoose.


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## MHB (5/10/15)

Ya gotta be pissed, it can be very frustrating
I strongly suspect that you have done a better job than you realise and that what you are seeing is entirely Cold break and that will never settle in a 1.070 beer. You are quite right about the relative density.
There are a bunch of things you could do but what I would recommend is that you don't chill the beer in the kettle.
Either No-Chill at the end of the boil, add finings and whirlpool , rack to a container leaving hop debris and hot break behind - ignore any cold break that forms in the no-chill container.
Or do as you have to date, syphon off once all signs of rotation from whirlpooling have stoped (and maybe an extra 10 minutes or so), just leave enough in the bottom of the kettle for the hot break (say 1L or so)
In either case the result should be the same and a 1.070 beer is going to make lots of cold break, especially if its highly hopped.

I would try some BrewBright I find it much more effective than Whirlfloc but like any fining using it properly in terms of how you use it and how much you use is really important, the wrong dose can actually make the problem worse. I am inclined to agree with manticle I suspect that you 1/4 tab may be well off the mark
Mark


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## fraser_john (5/10/15)

Nizmoose said:


> For reference here's a picture after a 20 minute sit. Absolutely useless!


I have had similar issues, but only when I did not use a hop sock. For some reason the pellet material just refused to settle out! I've since gone back to hop socking and have had better results. No idea why it would be so......


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## growler (5/10/15)

My 2c,

When starting out with all grain I used 1 Whirlfloc per 23lt batch and got lots of cloudy cold break in my NC cubes.

Advice from this forum was to reduce to 1/2 a tablet per batch , which is the recommended rate.

I now use 1 tab @ 10 min in my 60tl batches, lose 5lt to trub in an 80lt kettle and get just a little cold break in the cube.

My finished beer has chill haze but stll has won local comps.

G.


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## MHB (5/10/15)

You would think it would be easy to get good clear instructions on the best way to use Whirlfloc - WRONG - not even the manufacturers give better than basic guidance and that if full of get out of jail free and escape clauses.
The closest I have seen to a "Recommended" dosage is 2 Tablets to a US Barrel (about 117L), and this is the part most people don't read *@ 10oP *(1.040 SG)
So for a 25L kettle full the "recommended" dose is going to be very close to 1/2 a tablet (~0.43) if you beer was at 1.040.
What the Whirlfloc is doing is acting on the protein from the malt (mostly) if you have a higher gravity you have more protein and that requires more Whirlfloc.
So if you were boiling a 1.070 (17.5oP) batch you should be using (0.43/40*70=) ~0.75 of a tablet.
Even then there are a lot of other factors that the manufacturers recommend paying attention to, pH is going to be a big one and Ca content of the wort will play an important roll to, they always recommend doing trials and determining the optimum dose.

I suppose that if you wanted a starting place, by looking at 1 tablet / 58.674L @ 10oP you could make a little equation that says: -
No Tablets = L X oP X 0.0017 (just testing my finger counting) 25*17.5*0.0017 = 0.74375 Tablets
You would still have to do a bunch of trials to optimise which would be fine if you were a big brewery doing the same beer over and over again.
I still prefer BrewBright, Growler , one of the advantages of BrewBright is that it really helps to reduce the Chill Haze forming part of the beer at the same time as doing the kettle fining - well worth trying.
Mark


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## Nizmoose (5/10/15)

Thanks for all the great replies guys, having a laugh looking back on my posts I was not a happy camper!


Diesel80 said:


> Niz,
> I use whirfloc in kettle.
> in a 60L boil with 54L in kettle at end i use 2x tablets and put them in at 10 to go.
> I whirlpool hot and the stuff works! Biggest beer was 1.060.
> ...


I have no doubt it works as obviously they wouldnt sell any once everyone caught on haha but for some reason it really did nothing for me but I'll adjust my dosage and hopefully get similar results to you!



MHB said:


> Ya gotta be pissed, it can be very frustrating
> I strongly suspect that you have done a better job than you realise and that what you are seeing is entirely Cold break and that will never settle in a 1.070 beer. You are quite right about the relative density.
> There are a bunch of things you could do but what I would recommend is that you don't chill the beer in the kettle.
> Either No-Chill at the end of the boil, add finings and whirlpool , rack to a container leaving hop debris and hot break behind - ignore any cold break that forms in the no-chill container.
> ...


I'll give brewbrite a try after these ten tabs and will see which I prefer! I have no doubt that what I was seeing was cold break, it definitely was, but I was under the assumption that whirlfloc takes care of hops as well as if not mainly protein? This was my first beer of 1.070 OG so I'm interested to try again on a smaller beer. My biggest issue so far isnt so much the appearance of the wort but the amount of straining I had to do haha



MHB said:


> You would think it would be easy to get good clear instructions on the best way to use Whirlfloc - WRONG - not even the manufacturers give better than basic guidance and that if full of get out of jail free and escape clauses.
> The closest I have seen to a "Recommended" dosage is 2 Tablets to a US Barrel (about 117L), and this is the part most people don't read *@ 10oP *(1.040 SG)
> So for a 25L kettle full the "recommended" dose is going to be very close to 1/2 a tablet (~0.43) if you beer was at 1.040.
> What the Whirlfloc is doing is acting on the protein from the malt (mostly) if you have a higher gravity you have more protein and that requires more Whirlfloc.
> ...


Thanks a lot for this info mark I'll use that maths for next time for sure, Brewbrite is going on the shopping list. I have comabtted some chill haze problems with longer cold crashing but I'm getting to the point where I am really wanting to stretch the presentation of the beer if for nothing else than the satisfaction of a challenge.


After reading all this it looks like I have a few factors which contributed to my problem and a few things I need to work on. Firstly a very small volume of high gravity wort was probably a pretty harsh test for the whirlfloc. My next batch is 13L of 1.050 so more volume but less gravity. I'll post whatever happens there. Also it appears that brewbrite maybe a good alternative, from memory its a powder and not a tablet? might suit me and my smaller batches more for the sake of not trying to inaccurately razor blade a tablet into bits. I appreciate all the help guys and hopefully I'll get this whole thing working how I want soon!


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## dicko (5/10/15)

Nizmoose,
Beerbelly Brewing sells Brewbrite.

I mix it into around 100 mls of clean cold water and add the slurry 10 minutes before flame out.
You can see it clump the protein together before your eyes....I would never go back to Wirlflock.


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## Nizmoose (5/10/15)

dicko said:


> Nizmoose,
> Beerbelly Brewing sells Brewbrite.
> 
> I mix it into around 100 mls of clean cold water and add the slurry 10 minutes before flame out.
> You can see it clump the protein together before your eyes....I would never go back to Wirlflock.


Cheers dicko had a good look into brewbrite before and looks like I'll give it a whirl (pun intended). Not saying whirlfloc is useless of course and I'll be using all the tabs but I'll definitely be comparing and seeing what I prefer over the next few weeks!


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## dicko (5/10/15)

The Brewbrite listed on BB's site says it does not need slurrying but I slurry it and it seems to work much better.
The first lot I used was from Craftbrewer and I did not know I had to slurry it and was very dissappointed but the next time I used it I had done more r search and slurrying definately worked a lot better.
My conclusion is that there must be two types of brewbrite but both seem to work well in a slurry.

Good brewing


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## Jack of all biers (5/10/15)

Now this may not help with your 'kettle losses' problem as per your OP, but to help reduce some of the protein problems you have with coagulation, have you tried 90 min boils. Whilst not the be all and end all, I have always conducted 90 min boils and only recently tried whirlfloc (at 15 mins before shut off) finding it has helped reduce chill haze to nothing (this is in addition to lagering for 1+ months). I must say though the difference was not that noticable as compared to my usual 90 min boils + lagering (without whirlfloc).

I also use a very 'technical method' of ensuring reduction in large protein particles/shredded hops. It's called a sanitized sieve and stocking  . Sieve with stocking wrapped under it with the combined filter resting ontop of the fermentor. The wort pours through it into the fermentor with the stocking stopping most protein coagulate from getting into the fermentor (clear wort is filtered through) and at the same time creates better aeration.

Whilst not the most professional set up it works and like others, I pour the remaining litre or two from the kettle into the same filter and freeze for later use. By this method, I don't have to put in a container and chill settle the trub, it is already seperated.

Simple and effective.


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## Nizmoose (5/10/15)

Haha funnily enough the batch in question was my first 90 minute boil haha, I actually forgot about that. So yeah I made an adjustment there as well to no avail


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