All Grain Fermenting

[Mclovin]

Hi felow brewers,

I have an all grain BIAB ale in my fermentor at the moment (Day 3 US 05) and am concerned about the amount of Trub/Crud sitting in the bottom. My outlet valve is totaly covered up by the excess Trub/Crud about 1/2 inch above the valve. I have not had this problem with kits/extracts before? I will be keging this once its done but valve is covered in crap so it may be difficult?


What can i do? :icon_cheers:

 

[TmC]

Hi felow brewers,

I have an all grain BIAB ale in my fermentor at the moment (Day 3 US 05) and am concerned about the amount of Trub/Crud sitting in the bottom. My outlet valve is totaly covered up by the excess Trub/Crud about 1/2 inch above the valve. I have not had this problem with kits/extracts before? I will be keging this once its done but valve is covered in crap so it may be difficult?


What can i do? :icon_cheers:

All my AG's seem to have lots of stuff in the bottom but never above the tap, i would hazard a guess that when you keg you could probably use a filter into the keg or if not it should just sink to the bottom. Note that i dont keg so you would be better of waiting for someone experienced to reply :icon_cheers: I use a small piece of violle attached to the end of my racking tube and that seems to do the trick.

 

[jbumpstead]

Hi felow brewers,

I have an all grain BIAB ale in my fermentor at the moment (Day 3 US 05) and am concerned about the amount of Trub/Crud sitting in the bottom. My outlet valve is totaly covered up by the excess Trub/Crud about 1/2 inch above the valve. I have not had this problem with kits/extracts before? I will be keging this once its done but valve is covered in crap so it may be difficult?


What can i do? :icon_cheers:

G'day McLovin,

Sit tight it'll all be fine.

When you rack your beer off into your keg you'll suck a little bit of the trub out of your fermenter but most of it will stay behind. The trub will be set fairly tight so even though its above your valve you won't end up with it all in your keg.

The trub that makes it into the keg will settle to the bottom when you chill it - it will ultimately end up in the first glass or two you pour from the keg or will stay on the bottom of the keg.

Cheers,

Justin.

 

[Mclovin]

All my AG's seem to have lots of stuff in the bottom but never above the tap, i would hazard a guess that when you keg you could probably use a filter into the keg or if not it should just sink to the bottom. Note that i dont keg so you would be better of waiting for someone experienced to reply :icon_cheers: I use a small piece of violle attached to the end of my racking tube and that seems to do the trick.

Is Violle curtain material?

 

[TmC]

Yep, i just had some handy from my left over BIAB.

 

[Mclovin]

A filter it is! just to be safe.

 

[TmC]

I find that even when i dont filter my beer is still really clear, i just get a bit of sediment in the bottom of my bottles, i pour into a glass anyway so i dont mind.

 

[Mclovin]

The Ale is Ross's Nelson Sauvin summer ale made to the recipe in the DB but adjusted in brewmate to 19 ltrs. 90 minute mash at 64'C and 80 minute boil with hops as recomended. I ended up with an OG of 1.060 instead of 1.050 not sure why?

 

[TmC]

Not sure exactly why but i know my first AG was way higher than i expected, i put it down to extracting too much (suppose thats a good thing) sugary goodness from the grain. Ended up at 7.1% and super bitter, i renamed it to my little IPA. Now if it happens, i just water it down until i get my desired SG.

 

[JulieRush]

another trick is when you put the wort into the fermenter and pitch the yeast, set the fermenter resting on something like a book or similar under the side where the tap and outlet are, so that it's on an angle and the base of the fermenter slopes away from the tap.

that way when everything settles during ferment, it settles in a nice pile on the opposite side to the tap, keeping it clear of trub and yeastie cake.

 

[kelbygreen]

ok I can be the only one thinking this can I?? did you whirlpool and only take off clear wort from the kettle??? I do maxi BIAB and I only take clear wort but I might have 2-3lts of trub left and only 11lts in the fermenter. So i top the kettle up with about 10lts of water to give me 21lts then put the heat on and boil for about 5 mins. then drain again as the trub has about 2lts of high gravity wort and by adding the extra 10lts you get close to your volume and better efficiency Yeah hops might suffer by few IBU but I have never noticed as the hops are strianed along with a heap of break after the first boil. So I boil siphon strain the trub/hops threw voile then boil the strained liquid I prob end up with 1.5lts of trub then.

I never get clear beer into kegs with extract 1 week at .5 deg still has so much sediment. 3 days at .5 with my AG keg and clear as. extract take about 1-2 weeks in keg to get close to the AG with 1/4 the time fermenting and kegged

 

[Mclovin]

ok I can be the only one thinking this can I?? did you whirlpool and only take off clear wort from the kettle??? I do maxi BIAB and I only take clear wort but I might have 2-3lts of trub left and only 11lts in the fermenter. So i top the kettle up with about 10lts of water to give me 21lts then put the heat on and boil for about 5 mins. then drain again as the trub has about 2lts of high gravity wort and by adding the extra 10lts you get close to your volume and better efficiency Yeah hops might suffer by few IBU but I have never noticed as the hops are strianed along with a heap of break after the first boil. So I boil siphon strain the trub/hops threw voile then boil the strained liquid I prob end up with 1.5lts of trub then.

I never get clear beer into kegs with extract 1 week at .5 deg still has so much sediment. 3 days at .5 with my AG keg and clear as. extract take about 1-2 weeks in keg to get close to the AG with 1/4 the time fermenting and kegged

What is the purpose of the whirlpool? im a bit of a rookie. :icon_cheers:

 

[TmC]

What is the purpose of the whirlpool? im a bit of a rookie. :icon_cheers:

I would think that the solids would sink to the bottoms/sides as the force of the wort spinning increases. I just let my wort sit of a bit and that seems to work, i still get a lot of crud but in the end it seems to work out.

 

[hsb]

A whirlpool will deposit most of the hops/other material in the middle of your kettle, so if you have a pickup towards the outside of the kettle you should be able to avoid drawing too much into your cube/chiller/fermenter/wherever your wort is headed next. There's a lot of discussion about whirlpooling already around on here, just be careful not to oxygenate your wort by overly vigorous whirlpooling.
I just wait 5-10 minutes for the wort to cool just a little, then do 5 minutes of stirring to get a whirlpool happening and most of my hops end up in a cone in the middle, it's never perfect but helps keep enough crud out the fermenter to access the tap generally.
Congrats on your AG BIAB.

 

[TmC]

I never was good with gravity :lol:

 

[bignath]

I just let my wort sit of a bit and that seems to work, i still get a lot of crud but in the end it seems to work out.

I'm confused...

"it seems to work but then you still end up with crud" means that whatever your process is, it isn't working.

As others have said above, a whirlpool will concentrate all of the crap you're trying to avoid getting into your fermenter, into the centre of you pot before you transfer.
Some pots are better than others though...I use a 50lt Keg for my boiler and the dome bottom in these are brilliant for the whirlpool effect. I used to use a flat bottom pot for my boiler and whilst a whirlpool still works, it hasn't been as successfull for me as the domed bottom keg.

 

[Mclovin]

I'm confused...

"it seems to work but then you still end up with crud" means that whatever your process is, it isn't working.

As others have said above, a whirlpool will concentrate all of the crap you're trying to avoid getting into your fermenter, into the centre of you pot before you transfer.
Some pots are better than others though...I use a 50lt Keg for my boiler and the dome bottom in these are brilliant for the whirlpool effect. I used to use a flat bottom pot for my boiler and whilst a whirlpool still works, it hasn't been as successfull for me as the domed bottom keg.

I would imagine the dome base of your keg is concaved so you would get good results with whirlpooling, as aposed to it being convexd which would not workout so well.

 

[argon]

To address the problem at hand with the trub covering the outlet... Just prop up the outlet side at an angle so that the trub will find it's own level and be below the line of the outlet. Upon completion of fermentation chill the beer as cold as possible (-0.5C being ideal) for a minimum of 48hrs to a week. This will compact the yeast cake and make transfer alot easier and your beer brighter.

In the future try to exclude as much of the kettle trub as possible upon transfer.

 

[Mclovin]

To address the problem at hand with the trub covering the outlet... Just prop up the outlet side at an angle so that the trub will find it's own level and be below the line of the outlet. Upon completion of fermentation chill the beer as cold as possible (-0.5C being ideal) for a minimum of 48hrs to a week. This will compact the yeast cake and make transfer alot easier and your beer brighter.

In the future try to exclude as much of the kettle trub as possible upon transfer.

Makes sense, i will try it. Thanks

 

[TmC]

I'm confused...

"it seems to work but then you still end up with crud" means that whatever your process is, it isn't working.

Are you telling me that you have no crud in your fermentors?