Cold Break Experiment

[Bribie G]

Cold break is good, cold break is bad, I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time this discussion pops up on forums. My experiment today, with my double urn BIAB setup, is to do two identical brews then no chill them overnight. Tomorrow I'll pour the top half of each cube into a fermenter and the rest into the other fermenter.
So one will get little or no CB, the other will get all of it.

4000g Galaxy Pale Pilsener
1000g Rice
330g Carapils

20g Northern Brewer GER 60 mins
30g Saaz 10 mins

S-189 Lager yeast.

So lets sort the sheep from the goats.

 

[Nick JD]

I put my cold break on my Weetbix.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Looking forward to seeing the results for this one.

 

[tavas]

Sounds like a plan. Would be interested in seeing what results you get. I too am confused about whether cold break is good or bad.

 

[hazard]

Cold break is good, cold break is bad, I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time this discussion pops up on forums. My experiment today, with my double urn BIAB setup, is to do two identical brews then no chill them overnight. Tomorrow I'll pour the top half of each cube into a fermenter and the rest into the other fermenter.
So one will get little or no CB, the other will get all of it.

4000g Galaxy Pale Pilsener
1000g Rice
330g Carapils

20g Northern Brewer GER 60 mins
30g Saaz 10 mins

S-189 Lager yeast.

So lets sort the sheep from the goats.

Well if cold break is bad, then no-one can use a plate chiller cause it all goes into the fermenter. But I know that many people do and still produce good beer. I have in the past just poured the whole kettle into a fermenter through a kitchen strainer, this captures hop residue but i assume it lets cold break through - hasn't prevented me from scoring a few places in brewing comps. So maybe rather than good vs bad it's a case of cold break no harm vs no cold break even better.

How will you evaluate results? A simple taste test? What would timing of taste test be? A potential pitfall of cold break might be long term stability - to test this you need to test (for example) after 1 mth, after 6 months, after 12 months. So if there is no difference after 1 mth you will still need to wait a while to sort out long-term effects.

But a good idea and will be interested to see results.

 

[Bribie G]

Yup I'll 'blog' it on this thread, e.g. length and vigour of fermentation, clarity, taste, head retention, etc etc.

 

[Nick JD]

Is it really a test on polyphenols? Question - will you polyclar?

 

[Sammus]

who said it's bad? everything I've read says it's good...

also, I though that you barely even get a cold break no chilling, and furthermore, doesn't most of the cold break would remain in suspension for quite a while, even if it does form, I thought it took months to settle out properly.

I reckon it's hot break you should be testing, and may well be.

 

[Bribie G]

Nick - Yes. As long as both batches are polyclared equally, the thing is not to do anything differently to what I normally do, except for the one test item. With cold break the argument isn't just about polyphenols, it also involves issues such as yeast nutrition, flavour etc.

Actually come to think of it, I won't be Polyclaring in cube, I'll be using that kettle fining we can't discuss on AHB so the polyphenols, in theory, should mostly remain in the kettle trub.

Sammus - I get a lot of cold break no chilling, often I get an extra litre of clear hot wort out of the kettle that I put in a Schott bottle overnight and use for starter, and next morning there is nearly always a jellyfish in the jar . I'll do it this time and post a piccie.

 

[MHB]

A certain amount is beneficial, too much can cause problems, the only way to get too much would be to use high protein grain/adjunct, or perhaps to double the amount you get from an otherwise perfectly healthy wort which is just what this experiment may end up doing.

Fail to see just what you hope to achieve.

Bit like paracetamol a bit can be a boon too much will screw your liver, we already know that, neither outcome is neither outcome makes it intrinsically good nor bad, it's just a fact of life.

MHB

 

[Bribie G]

The thing is with my new double set up, trying this out will take no further effort whatsoever. So why not. If anything, fermenter #1 will be a good demo of what a wort would be like if it had all the cold break removed (as recommended by Palmer) and therefore whether it would be a good idea to remove the cold break every time. At worst I'll end up with a not-as-palatable brew from fermenter #2 - using it up in some black and tans should solve that
To actually encourage break I'll lash out on a few bags of ice from the IGA and do a more rapid chill than normal.

 

[unrealeous]

Sounds like a good experiment Bribie.

I put my hand up for independent taster, since out of all the people I'm come across on this site, I feel I'm the most impartial. I'll pm you my address when you can send a half dozen bottles of each

 

[Thirsty Boy]

who said it's bad? everything I've read says it's good...

also, I though that you barely even get a cold break no chilling, and furthermore, doesn't most of the cold break would remain in suspension for quite a while, even if it does form, I thought it took months to settle out properly.

I reckon it's hot break you should be testing, and may well be.

Why on earth would you not get a cold break in no-chill? You do.

As mhb said, the general consensus is that cold break isn't so bad, but too much can be a problem. Which is handy, because cold break is damn hard to get rid of, home brewers who think they are getting rid of it by using an immersion chiller are (for the most part) kidding themselves. A lot of German brewers who are obsessed with "clean" tasting beer think that cold break makes a negative difference and take steps to reduce is - floatation, racking, etc. But mostly brewers leave it in there.

Mind you, anyone who is rep itching yeast from conical fermenters is getting rid of most of it by discarding it at cropping, so it might only be one brew into a blend that gets a fermentation that even had much cold break in it.

The notion that it is in any way "good" for the beer is arguable, besides with anything short of filtering your cold wort, you are going to have way more than enough left inthe wort for even the supposed good effects to happen.

This will be an interesting one I think Bribie... No-chill is probably one of the few ways to get rid of a decent proportion of the cold break. I reckon maybe leave teh cubes for a bit longer and rack the "top half" pretty carefully, you should get pretty damn break free wort, and teh other half will have a double dose. The sort of lager you are going to make will show up the difference if therre is one.

Blind triangles first please.... No use trying to work out what the differences are if in a proper test the tasters can't even tell the beers apart.

TB

 

[Nick JD]

Thirsty, I'm wondering, are the polyphenols "locked" up in the protein of the cold break?

Could it be that by no-chilling we can separate out the cold break completely, but in the time between cooling and pouring into the fermenter the dominant problem with cold break has still leached out into the wort?

I'm saying this because I have had hazy beers with zero cold break poured into the fermenter. Has all my polyphenols come from hops (no hop material in fermenter and no late additions)?

 

[mb83]

Might it not be better to syphon off the top half of each cube instead of pouring?
I know when I pour from my cubes everything mixes back up again?

Cheers,

mb83

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Nick,

Chill haze and cold breAk are essentially the same thing. If you were to chill your wort down to chill haze forming temperatures, the chill haze would be cold break (mostly anyway). So even though you got rid of all the cold break in your cube... Not all of it had formed, only the stuff that remained insoluble at the temperature your wort was when you transferred.

 

[Bribie G]

Might it not be better to syphon off the top half of each cube instead of pouring?
I know when I pour from my cubes everything mixes back up again?

Cheers,

mb83

I never keep wort in a no chill cube for more than three days at the most. If the 'experiment' leads me to prefer racking the wort off as much of the CB as possible, I might fit the cubes with taps to make this easier. I know a tap is one extra place for nasties to hide but a couple of days should be safe.

 

[sandjeep457]

Great experiment.
I am doing 12 litre half size BIAB batches and cool the Pot in the Swimming Pool (It is currently at 7 degrees due to Melbournes great weather). Takes about 20 minutes to cool to yeast pitching temp.
However, when pouring the cold wort into the Fermenter, I have about 30% of the wort in cold break - I pour the clear Wort off the top but there is always about 3 litres of mixed up cold break in the bottom of the Pot (I use 1/3 Whirlfloc Tablet).

So very keen to see how you go Bribie Island man. It will increase my output a lot if I can pour it all into the fermenter.

cheers,
Sandy

 

[Nick JD]

I never keep wort in a no chill cube for more than three days at the most. If the 'experiment' leads me to prefer racking the wort off as much of the CB as possible, I might fit the cubes with taps to make this easier. I know a tap is one extra place for nasties to hide but a couple of days should be safe.

My much-maligned kettle chilling lets me pour while seeing what's going on and in a smooth single action. I watch the cold break start to appear when there's about 2L left - I often keep pouring about a liter of this break material in (probably half the cold break) when I notice the hot break popping it's head up to the rim of the pot.

The two look quite different. Cold break looks like omlette and hot break looks like curds.

A tap would have to be very high up in the cube to not draw the breaks out - it's not hard or compacted like yeast trub.

 

[ekul]

I did the a brew the other day that had all the hot and cold break in it, it was the most vigorous fermentation i've ever had to date, there was bloody yeast everywhere. The last brew i've put down was the clearest wort i've ever had, i could see the bottom of the pot) and it still hasn't fired up yet.
This doesn't prove anything cause they were two different brews but i'm not going to be so padantic about not getting it in anymore, thats for sure.

I am interested to hear your result bribie.