schooey
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Its possible (just floating ideas) - that the large volume you see in your fermenter is less from cold break, than from a bit of overuse of kettle finings. You use too much of it and the break forms big fluffy floccs that wont compact down properly. Its not that there is a heap "more" of it, its just taking up more space thats all.
My theory on cold break is that really - most home brewers are transferring the majority of the cold break into their fermenters regardless of how they chill. The particle size in cold break is just so small... that the amount of time we give our wort to whirlpool and settle rests - just isn't sufficient for any great portion of the cold break to actually settle out. The time for cold break to settle out effectively - is in the range of multiple hours. I think that mostly, what happens is that when people IM chill - they simply have a longer period of undisturbed rest time - and they get a better settling of hot break. Only the biggest floccs of cold break are being left behind, the rest is teeny tiny particles in suspension and hardly even makes the wort cloudy to look at.
I think that the standard whirlpool/rest/transfer routine for a CF or plate chiller transfers ALL of the cold break, and a reasonable amount of hot break as well - the IM regime transfers the majority of cold break and a lesser amount of hotbreak. The difference people notice, is mostly that difference in teh amount of hot break.
Looking at your picture - I say that thats mostly hot break. Cold break is more a kind of dirty grey/brown colour and that all looks like clear/white hotbreak to me. When you see krausen rising and it brings up that brown goo along with it... a lot of that is cold break that rises with the C02 during initial fermentation.
Or thats what I reckon anyway.
Thirsty
You could be very well right on there, TB...
- I used a whole whirlfloc in that batch of 21L, which, if I recall is only supposed to need half a tablet
- It didn't spend a lot of time in the kettle after whirlpool, somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes
- Most of that break in real life is a creamy white fluffy colour, not grey looking
- and lastly, it's only just got a krausen forming now, and it has that grey looking scum on top with it, although some of the big fluffy clumps have come to the top too
So next question, if there is a majority of hot break in there, as well as some cold break, is there any difference to my above question? Do they need to be treated differently, or is it the same thing; As long as they don't overtake the yeast, it's no biggie?
and Cheers for the help, TB