# Chill then whirlpool or whirlpool then chill?



## vonSchlapper (3/12/17)

Hi all,

Huge apologies if this is a stupid question, or if it’s been asked a billion times before, but...

Should I chill my wort (immersion chiller) then get it spinning to whirlpool the trub and the cold-break material or will spinning it after chilling re-suspend the cold-break?
The alternative seems to be to whirlpool out the trub, then chill - although then it feels like the cold-break material will remain.
Which is best?

Any thoughts gratefully received.
Cheers,
Will


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## captain crumpet (3/12/17)

Both at the same time.


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## razz (3/12/17)

I usually chill with IC and then whirlpool Will. Not sure if there is much difference. I use the pumps in my BM50 to pump the wort as the IC is chilling to get the temp down fast so not much point in me whirlpooling first. Horses for courses!


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## Dr_Rocks (3/12/17)

Hi Will, I uae a long spoon to whirlpool then chill. Simply because I found it easier to get a good trub cone without the chiller in there. Then I gently put the immersion coil in. Worked for me!


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## Dan Pratt (3/12/17)

chill, remove the IC and whirlpool to settle out the trub.


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## captain crumpet (3/12/17)

How do you all do stepped temperature whirlpool hops then?


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## Stubbie (3/12/17)

Dan Pratt said:


> chill, remove the IC and whirlpool to settle out the trub.



I've always been paranoid about exposing cooled wort to the atmosphere (and wild nasties) and so have never been game enough to remove the kettle lid & IC in order to access the wort and get a whirlpool going. Perhaps I've been over cautious because it sounds like a few here whirlpool after chilling without ill effect.


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## Andy_27 (3/12/17)

Yep, whirlpool after chilling to 20ish degrees. Leave for 30 - 40 mins before transferring to FV.


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## 2cranky (4/12/17)

I put the coil in the kettle about 10min before flame out to sanitize it. 
Then chill, remove coil, whirlpool and put the lid on the kettle while it settles.
I guess if I used a pump I could have the whirlpool going while chilling and just leave the coil in until cleanup.
But I wouldn't chuck a coil in cooled wort, too hard to sterilise.


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## Stubbie (4/12/17)

To those who chill and then whirlpool, how are you whirlpool - spoon, mechanically powered stirrer (eg. cordless drill) or via a pump?


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## timmyf (4/12/17)

Stubbie said:


> To those who chill and then whirlpool, how are you whirlpool - spoon, mechanically powered stirrer (eg. cordless drill) or via a pump?



Using a BM20 and immersion chiller. I normally cool a little bit, hopstand, chill with the pump on, then whirlpool and let stand for about 20mins. I got really excited about all the stainless gear on the BAC brewing website so bought one of these: Whirlpool shovel. It works as advertised, but at the end of the day it's no more useful than the big ol' stainless spoon and harder to sanitise.


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## fletcher (4/12/17)

whirlpool, chill, netflix


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## razz (4/12/17)

Stubbie said:


> To those who chill and then whirlpool, how are you whirlpool - spoon, mechanically powered stirrer (eg. cordless drill) or via a pump?



Stainless mash paddle Stubbie.


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## MHB (4/12/17)

Pumps and electric drills with paint stirrers on them are about the worst option.
When we boil a wort, especially if we are using an effective fining, we try to encourage the formation of large protein/polyphenol (hot break) particles, these sink faster and settle out in the whirlpool better and are easier to separate from the good bright wort.
If you use what is called a high sheer pump or mixer you will break up or worse stretch out (looks like snot) flock and to some extent gels (glucans), you will find it harder to recover as much wort and it will take longer.

Maximum safe velocity is generally given as 3m/s.
Say your pump has an impeller 40mm in diameter, that's ~125mm, and its running at 2850 RPM (47.5R/s), the edge of the impeller is traveling at 0.125m*47.5= 5.94m/s, close to twice what is good for the wort.
I use a big SS spoon, have seen commercial systems that use pumps, they tend to be specialised low sheer pumps, even when used to transfer from a boil kettle to a specialised whirlpool tank.

As a home brewer, a big spoon/paddle just move it in as large a circle as you can and build up speed slowly until the whole wort is rotating- then put the lid on and leave it alone - avoid getting a vortex that sucks in air or excess splashing (HSA is real).
Mark


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## peteru (4/12/17)

Somebody better send a message to iMake (the people who make Grainfather) to inform them that their product https://www.grainfather.com/shop/accessories/whirlpool-paddle.html is a bad idea.


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## peteru (5/12/17)

@MHB be horrified. Start watching at 1:45


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## MHB (5/12/17)

Aren't they lucky they are fairly good at making stills
M


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## Stubbie (5/12/17)

Well then, looks like I'm screwed because I use a pump to recirculate the wort whilst chilling with an IC. 

So perhaps an option could be to:
1. use the IC to bring the wort BK down to 30C or thereabouts, which is typical using water from a rainwater tank in Melb
2. remove IC and whirlpool using a big ass SS spoon
3. draw off wort which at that stage should be low on break material, which in theory should be the case if whirlpooling has been successful, and
4. pump through a CFC to achieve the target pitching temp enroute to the FV

And in the meantime, the NC blokes will be shaking their heads saying why bother with all that trouble............?


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## Garfield (5/12/17)

I've never had any problems with a hot whirlpool at flameout with mash paddle then run off to cubes for chilling


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## peteru (5/12/17)

For my last few batches I pulled out the Grainfather counter flow chiller. Mainly because the tap water was still cold enough for it to make sense. (Not the last batch actually, that only got it to 27C)

But boy, is that a pain! No chill with cube hops is so much easier. Easily saves a couple of hours from the brewday, not having to stuff about with the counter flow chiller. An immersion chiller is so much simpler in terms of cleaning and required connections.


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## stm (6/12/17)

Even better - no chill and no whirlpool!


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## Schikitar (6/12/17)

But even with no chill you end up with trub at the bottom of the cube that can get stirred up easily when transferring to the fermenter..?! 

I no chill as well, never had a very successful whirlpool experience though, all the junk just keeps floating around in the kettle and barely settles out before I have to get it into the cube.. I've recently resorted to transferring the last 5L from the kettle and/or cube to a flask, cold crash it and pour off the resulting wort to keep things as clean as possible..


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## vonSchlapper (6/12/17)

Thanks everybody - it seems like there’s a good split between chill-then-whirlpool, whirlpool-then-chill, and no-chill.
*I guess the answer is just to chill out about it!*


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## MHB (6/12/17)

I'll give you one more clue - every commercial brewery whirlpools then chills!
Reason being we want to remove Hot Break (the matter that settles during the boil) and we really don't care about Cold Break (flock that forms during cooling). Cold break is an important source of nutrients for the yeast. Problem is that if you chill first, it is very difficult to discriminate between the two types of flock, Cold Break is also very fine and very slow to settle so eliminating it is both difficult and expensive in terms of wort losses.
In very high protein worts (6 row malt, lots of adjunct...) there can be so much cold break that it can cause problems (yeast coating, reduced bitterness...) but outside the US where they may use crappy malt, given a decent boil and a kettle fining, best practice is to either: -
Separate then cool, ignore cold break that forms post chilling, or
Chill with an immersion chiller, then make sure you leave enough wort in the kettle to ensure that all the hot break and hop trub stays in the kettle.

It would be a good idea to do a trial run if you are going to use an immersion chiller, syphon or otherwise transfer the hot wort from the kettle until you have clearly identified how much trub/wort you need to leave in the kettle to be sure that the hot break is left behind.
Mark


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## stm (7/12/17)

Schikitar said:


> But even with no chill you end up with trub at the bottom of the cube that can get stirred up easily when transferring to the fermenter..?!



I find that by, post-mash, lifting my BIAB bag very carefully without any stirring post-mash or ramping up to mash out temp, then using Brewbrite at T-10, there is very little trub and it settles quite well during the 20 minutes or so between FO and cubing, w/o any whirlpool. (Bribie method - see his photos)


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## vonSchlapper (21/1/18)

MHB said:


> I'll give you one more clue - every commercial brewery whirlpools then chills!
> Reason being ... we really don't care about Cold Break ... best practice is to ... Separate then cool, ignore cold break that forms post chilling ... do a trial run ...
> Mark



Excellent; thanks. I was getting worked up about clearing the cold break. I’ll just chill out about it. 

Forgetting Charlie Papazian’s wise words “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a Homebrew!”


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