# Filtering Hot And Cold Break



## cpsmusic (23/1/11)

Hi,

So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?

Cheers,

Chris


----------



## browndog (23/1/11)

cpsmusic said:


> Hi,
> 
> So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?
> 
> ...



No, no-chillers have proved this, if you did want to filter it out you could try a piece of cheese cloth.

cheers

Browndog


----------



## Rotgut (23/1/11)

I found once I fitted a tap to my kettle (40lt aluminium pot), I can now draw off the boiled wort and leave the undisturbed trub trapped within the immersion chiller. The other option is to seal up your fermenter for a couple of hours after transfer then rack it into a fresh fermenter when the trub has settled.


----------



## Ducatiboy stu (23/1/11)

Just let it cool/chill before putting into your fermenter, I would try using a siphon hose making sure it isnt into the break material


----------



## manticle (23/1/11)

cpsmusic said:


> Hi,
> 
> So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?
> 
> ...


 You'd struggle to remove much break material using a sieve. I have read that using whole hop flowers may allow this (not 100% certain) but hop pellets won't. The only two proper ways I know are a tap in the kettle or to siphon as suggested above.

However from my early days of using two small pots, you can allow the break to settle then pour a bit gently, stopping when you see the remainder is mostly break material and hop deris. See this as a temporary solution until you set yourself up with a good sized, plumbed kettle or decent urn.


----------



## kenlock (23/1/11)

browndog said:


> No, no-chillers have proved this, if you did want to filter it out you could try a piece of cheese cloth.
> 
> cheers
> 
> Browndog



I don't understand! What does NC have to do with leaving behind hot break? Doesn't this get left behind in the trub after whirlpooling?


----------



## browndog (23/1/11)

kenlock said:


> I don't understand! What does NC have to do with leaving behind hot break? Doesn't this get left behind in the trub after whirlpooling?



some does, most does not. Depends on how long you wait till you fill your cube.


----------



## lagers44 (23/1/11)

> I don't understand! What does NC have to do with leaving behind hot break? Doesn't this get left behind in the trub after whirlpooling?



Yes it does , but the cold break forms in the cube & most if not all brewers pour this all into the fermenter. It seems not to make any difference to the finished brew.


----------



## Ducatiboy stu (23/1/11)

Whirlpooling is prob beyond the bounds of the OP.... in fact most of us..

If you let the wort cool, be it N0-chill or chilling, the break will sit at the bottom of the pot and you can either siphon it off or use a tap 

Either way, it is very fine an will clog a cheese clothe or anything similar. I know cause I tried it and gave up very quickly.

If you do get a small amount of break material in your fermenter it will settle in the yeast cake


----------



## browndog (23/1/11)

cpsmusic said:


> Hi,
> 
> So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?
> 
> ...



it won't matter, your previous four brews have gone well, keep going the same Chris.

cheers

Browndog


----------



## BjornJ (23/1/11)

Not sure how relevant this is to you, but I have started keeping the last couple of litres in the kettle, before I would throw these out as they are mostly trub.

What I do is put it into sanitised glass V8 bottles and let the boiling hot wort sterilise the bottles.
The next day or whenever I'm ready to start the yeast starter I filter this wort, break and all through a funnel.

I put the funnel over another glass V8 bottle, put a square of normal kitchen paper in the funnel and pour the wort/trub from the first V8 bottle in the funnel.
Then come back every now and then and refill the funnel.
It takes a while, and often I have to dig out some of the break material clogging the kitchen paper to speed it up again, but I end up with crystal clear wort in the bottle.

Then I bottle this for 5-10 min to sterilise it again, and back in one of the V8 bottles.
Next day when this is cooled I use it for my yeast starter.





kitchen paper works great as a filter.
I usually take the first half a cup or something and pour back into the funnel as the first stuff that comes through is not quite clear.
After that it comes out very nice and clear.

Bjorn


----------



## haysie (23/1/11)

cpsmusic said:


> Hi,
> 
> So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?
> 
> ...



Have to agree with Manticle here, from the stovepot to the fermenter just pour until the break starts to run then thats your waste! All brewers have waste.
You can filter it as Bjorn posted, I simply use a tea towel pegged to a pucket and pour it in..... starter juice.... which in turn is waste but has provided a link in the chain.


----------



## Acasta (23/1/11)

Reading palmers, cold break wont form unless you rapidly chill. So no-chilling will have the cold break proteins in the beer, and will cause haze.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter7-4.html


For hotbreak and hop trub, sieve or cloth will get most hops trub, however the break material is so fine it will pass through. Your best bet is to collect the clear wort off the top of the kettle, either leaving the trub behind or putting it in a jar in the fridge and wait for it to separate and then use the clear wort from ontop. I find doing this can give me an extra few liters or good wort.

I havn't tried using paper and a funnel method as BjornJ suggested, however i find that voile and a sieve doesn't do the job.


----------



## RdeVjun (23/1/11)

browndog said:


> it won't matter, your previous four brews have gone well, keep going the same Chris.


+1, hear hear browndog- that's the voice of reason! In all honesty, if you're pleased with the results, then why change a thing?! Its another thing altogether convincing your contemporaries (i.e. fellow brewers), but I think the actual brewer should get first dibs...
Having said that, as Manticle touches upon, I am not the first to have found that with some whole hops in the boil, once the wort is cooled in- kettle and then poured through a sieve or a colander into the fermenter, actually form a decent filter matrix and intercept quite a lot of the break material, be it of the hot or cold variety. That's the cheap, no- modifications- necessary AG variant, I myself think it works rather well. If you're not up for that then, as Bjorn relates, wort recovery is fairly straightforward and anyone just throwing out kettle trub could take a long good hard look at what they're doing...


----------



## manticle (23/1/11)

Palmer has no experience of no chill though (at least not in terms of what's written in the HTB volumes I've read)

Cold break will form in no-chilled wort.


----------



## Acasta (23/1/11)

manticle said:


> Palmer has no experience of no chill though (at least not in terms of what's written in the HTB volumes I've read)
> 
> Cold break will form in no-chilled wort.



Interesting. He mentions Rapid chilling forming the cold break, and 'slow cooling' to not precipitate the cold break. I assumed that slow chilling was similar to no chill.


----------



## Ducatiboy stu (24/1/11)

cpsmusic said:


> Hi,
> 
> So far I've done 4 AG brews and all have worked out well. I brew on a stovetop and transfer the wort from the boiler to the fermenter by pouring. I'm yet to try filtering the hot/cold break material. Does this make a difference? If I want to filter the wort what would be suitable - a kitchen strainer, or should I use something finer like a piece of cloth?
> 
> ...




Basic Question


How big is the pot/pots that you are using....

My reason for asking is if you have a smallish pot, you may get away with gently pouring of the clear wort, leaving the trub

If it is a big pot, use a siphone

Regardless, you dont remove your wort from the kettle untill it has chilled/cooled


BASICALLY, at the end of the day, filtering your wort is a big PITA, that is why most dont do it.

What you have to do is factor in your trub losses 

For a beginer, allow 1ltr for trub loss



And, for the spelling naziś ........ sparge me


----------



## Ducatiboy stu (24/1/11)

RdeVjun said:


> wort recovery is fairly straightforward and anyone just throwing out kettle trub could take a long good hard look at what they're doing...



Your shitting me.....


----------



## felten (24/1/11)

Acasta said:


> Interesting. He mentions Rapid chilling forming the cold break, and 'slow cooling' to not precipitate the cold break. I assumed that slow chilling was similar to no chill.


Is that the same in the print version? a few things have changed since 99


----------



## Ducatiboy stu (24/1/11)

Acasta said:


> Interesting. He mentions Rapid chilling forming the cold break, and 'slow cooling' to not precipitate the cold break. I assumed that slow chilling was similar to no chill.



BULLSHIT

I do both.... or maybe all 3


i get break material in the bottom regardless of which method I use, so please do not start an argument that rapid chill, slow chill, no chill gives different break resualts, cause I have never seen any difference

The break starts to form as soon as the heat is removed, even at 60-70*c in the kettle, you can see it forming and the wort staring to clear, and that is using no-chill method











Pass me a VB please


----------



## beerdrinkingbob (24/1/11)

BjornJ said:


> Not sure how relevant this is to you, but I have started keeping the last couple of litres in the kettle, before I would throw these out as they are mostly trub.
> 
> What I do is put it into sanitised glass V8 bottles and let the boiling hot wort sterilise the bottles.
> The next day or whenever I'm ready to start the yeast starter I filter this wort, break and all through a funnel.
> ...




I pretty much do the same thing, generally ever second batch, normally get 1.5 litres of high gravity wort for a couple of starters.

It's a good way of saving some coin too!!


----------



## Malted (24/1/11)

beerdrinkingbob said:


> I pretty much do the same thing, generally ever second batch, normally get 1.5 litres of high gravity wort for a couple of starters.
> 
> It's a good way of saving some coin too!!




I am not sure about kitchen paper towels on a roll for filtering. I have filtered with them before and found that they can impart a 'kitchen towel' taste. Whether it is paper starches or some of the bleaching agents, or whether it would make a difference to anything, I don't know. I guess it is about what you have on hand at the time. Personally I prefer to use some sort of cloth from around the house that I have boiled for a while to sterilise and remove detergents.


----------



## DanRayner (24/1/11)

Leaving the majority of the hot-break in the kettle is relatively easy to do even on a stove-top system, just takes a bit of care as you pour - don't worry about leaving it all behind, it really won't matter too much in the long run.

If you are getting a hotbreak that is not clumping and dropping to the bottom then maybe the boil is not vigorous enough - it needs to be a pretty good rolling boil for a good break to form. And I really recommend whirlfloc; half a tablet in 15mins before the end, it makes the hot break and hops form together and drop to the bottom into a pretty snotty trub that is relatively easy to leave behind.

I can only imagine that kitchen towels and slow filtering of prefermented wort at room temperature open to the elements is only increasing the risk of infection or crap flavours in your beer.

The broken down proteins present in cold break consist of amino acids that are vital to healty yeast and a fast healthy ferment and they improve head formation and head retention. You don't necessarily want all of the cold break in your fermenter but eliminating all cold break would be detrimental to the finished beer. Mind you, i think it would be virtually impossible to remove all cold break...

What about the cold break that is formed in the plate chiller on the way to the fermenter in the (home)breweries that don't use immersion chillers? I guess the best way then would be to use some form of settling vessel?

Craig Webber (several-time Brewer of Show, AABC) uses a plate chiller and I don't think he worries about cold break in the fermenter - but he does filter most of his beers after ferment...

Two good articles on hot break and cold break.


----------



## Bribie G (24/1/11)

*HOT BREAK*

I use a floccing compound (Brewbrite but Whirlfloc, koppafloc etc are similar), leave the wort, covered, to settle for about 20 mins then I get perfectly clear wort out of the kettle. Here's a picture of the first glass out and the second glass out. Normally I'd keep the first glass for use in starter. The second glass, on this occasion, is just for illustration and as you can see it's virtually clear. If I'd drawn off a third glass it would have been crystal clear. 





When the nochill cube is full there's usually some worty goodness left in the kettle so I run this off into a lab bottle and let the break settle out and add that wort to the starter as well. Here's one the next day. As you can see the cold break has also formed, cold break is the stuff that looks like a jellyfish, hot break is a dirty biscuity brown colour.




*COLD BREAK*

Last year I did a double brew and no chilled both. When the cold break had formed in the cubes (a giant version of the above photo) I poured the clear top halves of both cubes into one fermenter and the "dregs" into the second. The beers turned out very similar indeed, in fact at a club tasting many people preferred the "cold break" beer as being a little more meaty and assertive, and the "non cold break" beer as tasting like a slightly watered down version of the other one. 






I don't worry about cold break any more. It makes little or no difference and just seems to sink to the bottom and stay there as a neutral substance. As you can see, it sank out during the experiment and just sat there.


----------



## DanRayner (24/1/11)

BribieG said:


> stuff



Wow Bribie, if I were Dr Karl and we were on his Thursday morning science show "Ask Dr Karl" on TripleJ, I'd be giving you a _Great Moments in Science_ book for doing such thorough and repeatable experiments!

Top hole! Case closed!


-----------


EDIT: this isn't sarcasm, it's very cool


----------



## Nick JD (24/1/11)

I kettle chill. Once or twice I've had a shocking attempt of pouring 16L if wort into a small funnel in the little hole in my fermenting cube and have stirred the buggary out of it by accident.

The cold break starts coming up with about 5 liters to go - and that's okay - but the hot break also comes up (the two look very different) with 3 or more liters to go. That's no good, especially when you've only got 16 liters of the stuff.

So I line a sieve with voile and pour the remains in where it drips into a bowl. Then after about 30 minutes when it's all collected and has settled (there's about 1cm of sediment at the bottom of the bowl and clear wort above) I decan't the clear stuff off into a saucepan, heat it to nearly boiling, let it cool to room temp with a lid and gladwrap on it and then chuck it in the fermenter with the rest.

Pretty much zero losses that way but only worth the hassle to keep the hot break out when I screw up the initial wort decant. Usually I lose about a liter of wort in the hot break.


----------

