Massive Kettle losses :( Need advice

[Diesel80]

Niz,
I use whirfloc in kettle.
in a 60L boil with 54L in kettle at end i use 2x tablets and put them in at 10 to go.
I whirlpool hot and the stuff works! Biggest beer was 1.060.
I start a whirlpool, lid on and walk away. Come back and it looks awesome and then i no chill into the cubes.

I wouldn't be without it.

Edit: perhaps because you are chilling you are getting cold break in kettle too, whereas my cold break will form in cube / fermenter?

Cheers,
D80

 

[manticle]

I use half a tab in 23ish litres so I'm not sure you are using the prescribed dosage nizmoose.

 

[MHB]

Ya gotta be pissed, it can be very frustrating
I strongly suspect that you have done a better job than you realise and that what you are seeing is entirely Cold break and that will never settle in a 1.070 beer. You are quite right about the relative density.
There are a bunch of things you could do but what I would recommend is that you don't chill the beer in the kettle.
Either No-Chill at the end of the boil, add finings and whirlpool , rack to a container leaving hop debris and hot break behind - ignore any cold break that forms in the no-chill container.
Or do as you have to date, syphon off once all signs of rotation from whirlpooling have stoped (and maybe an extra 10 minutes or so), just leave enough in the bottom of the kettle for the hot break (say 1L or so)
In either case the result should be the same and a 1.070 beer is going to make lots of cold break, especially if its highly hopped.

I would try some BrewBright I find it much more effective than Whirlfloc but like any fining using it properly in terms of how you use it and how much you use is really important, the wrong dose can actually make the problem worse. I am inclined to agree with manticle I suspect that you 1/4 tab may be well off the mark
Mark

 

[fraser_john]

For reference here's a picture after a 20 minute sit. Absolutely useless!

I have had similar issues, but only when I did not use a hop sock. For some reason the pellet material just refused to settle out! I've since gone back to hop socking and have had better results. No idea why it would be so......

 

[growler]

My 2c,

When starting out with all grain I used 1 Whirlfloc per 23lt batch and got lots of cloudy cold break in my NC cubes.

Advice from this forum was to reduce to 1/2 a tablet per batch , which is the recommended rate.

I now use 1 tab @ 10 min in my 60tl batches, lose 5lt to trub in an 80lt kettle and get just a little cold break in the cube.

My finished beer has chill haze but stll has won local comps.

G.

 

[MHB]

You would think it would be easy to get good clear instructions on the best way to use Whirlfloc - WRONG - not even the manufacturers give better than basic guidance and that if full of get out of jail free and escape clauses.
The closest I have seen to a "Recommended" dosage is 2 Tablets to a US Barrel (about 117L), and this is the part most people don't read @ 10oP (1.040 SG)
So for a 25L kettle full the "recommended" dose is going to be very close to 1/2 a tablet (~0.43) if you beer was at 1.040.
What the Whirlfloc is doing is acting on the protein from the malt (mostly) if you have a higher gravity you have more protein and that requires more Whirlfloc.
So if you were boiling a 1.070 (17.5oP) batch you should be using (0.43/40*70=) ~0.75 of a tablet.
Even then there are a lot of other factors that the manufacturers recommend paying attention to, pH is going to be a big one and Ca content of the wort will play an important roll to, they always recommend doing trials and determining the optimum dose.

I suppose that if you wanted a starting place, by looking at 1 tablet / 58.674L @ 10oP you could make a little equation that says: -
No Tablets = L X oP X 0.0017 (just testing my finger counting) 25*17.5*0.0017 = 0.74375 Tablets
You would still have to do a bunch of trials to optimise which would be fine if you were a big brewery doing the same beer over and over again.
I still prefer BrewBright, Growler , one of the advantages of BrewBright is that it really helps to reduce the Chill Haze forming part of the beer at the same time as doing the kettle fining - well worth trying.
Mark

 

[Nizmoose]

Thanks for all the great replies guys, having a laugh looking back on my posts I was not a happy camper!

Niz,
I use whirfloc in kettle.
in a 60L boil with 54L in kettle at end i use 2x tablets and put them in at 10 to go.
I whirlpool hot and the stuff works! Biggest beer was 1.060.
I start a whirlpool, lid on and walk away. Come back and it looks awesome and then i no chill into the cubes.

I wouldn't be without it.

Edit: perhaps because you are chilling you are getting cold break in kettle too, whereas my cold break will form in cube / fermenter?

Cheers,
D80

I have no doubt it works as obviously they wouldnt sell any once everyone caught on haha but for some reason it really did nothing for me but I'll adjust my dosage and hopefully get similar results to you!

Ya gotta be pissed, it can be very frustrating
I strongly suspect that you have done a better job than you realise and that what you are seeing is entirely Cold break and that will never settle in a 1.070 beer. You are quite right about the relative density.
There are a bunch of things you could do but what I would recommend is that you don't chill the beer in the kettle.
Either No-Chill at the end of the boil, add finings and whirlpool , rack to a container leaving hop debris and hot break behind - ignore any cold break that forms in the no-chill container.
Or do as you have to date, syphon off once all signs of rotation from whirlpooling have stoped (and maybe an extra 10 minutes or so), just leave enough in the bottom of the kettle for the hot break (say 1L or so)
In either case the result should be the same and a 1.070 beer is going to make lots of cold break, especially if its highly hopped.

I would try some BrewBright I find it much more effective than Whirlfloc but like any fining using it properly in terms of how you use it and how much you use is really important, the wrong dose can actually make the problem worse. I am inclined to agree with manticle I suspect that you 1/4 tab may be well off the mark
Mark

I'll give brewbrite a try after these ten tabs and will see which I prefer! I have no doubt that what I was seeing was cold break, it definitely was, but I was under the assumption that whirlfloc takes care of hops as well as if not mainly protein? This was my first beer of 1.070 OG so I'm interested to try again on a smaller beer. My biggest issue so far isnt so much the appearance of the wort but the amount of straining I had to do haha

You would think it would be easy to get good clear instructions on the best way to use Whirlfloc - WRONG - not even the manufacturers give better than basic guidance and that if full of get out of jail free and escape clauses.
The closest I have seen to a "Recommended" dosage is 2 Tablets to a US Barrel (about 117L), and this is the part most people don't read @ 10oP (1.040 SG)
So for a 25L kettle full the "recommended" dose is going to be very close to 1/2 a tablet (~0.43) if you beer was at 1.040.
What the Whirlfloc is doing is acting on the protein from the malt (mostly) if you have a higher gravity you have more protein and that requires more Whirlfloc.
So if you were boiling a 1.070 (17.5oP) batch you should be using (0.43/40*70=) ~0.75 of a tablet.
Even then there are a lot of other factors that the manufacturers recommend paying attention to, pH is going to be a big one and Ca content of the wort will play an important roll to, they always recommend doing trials and determining the optimum dose.

I suppose that if you wanted a starting place, by looking at 1 tablet / 58.674L @ 10oP you could make a little equation that says: -
No Tablets = L X oP X 0.0017 (just testing my finger counting) 25*17.5*0.0017 = 0.74375 Tablets
You would still have to do a bunch of trials to optimise which would be fine if you were a big brewery doing the same beer over and over again.
I still prefer BrewBright, Growler , one of the advantages of BrewBright is that it really helps to reduce the Chill Haze forming part of the beer at the same time as doing the kettle fining - well worth trying.
Mark

Thanks a lot for this info mark I'll use that maths for next time for sure, Brewbrite is going on the shopping list. I have comabtted some chill haze problems with longer cold crashing but I'm getting to the point where I am really wanting to stretch the presentation of the beer if for nothing else than the satisfaction of a challenge.


After reading all this it looks like I have a few factors which contributed to my problem and a few things I need to work on. Firstly a very small volume of high gravity wort was probably a pretty harsh test for the whirlfloc. My next batch is 13L of 1.050 so more volume but less gravity. I'll post whatever happens there. Also it appears that brewbrite maybe a good alternative, from memory its a powder and not a tablet? might suit me and my smaller batches more for the sake of not trying to inaccurately razor blade a tablet into bits. I appreciate all the help guys and hopefully I'll get this whole thing working how I want soon!

 

[dicko]

Nizmoose,
Beerbelly Brewing sells Brewbrite.

I mix it into around 100 mls of clean cold water and add the slurry 10 minutes before flame out.
You can see it clump the protein together before your eyes....I would never go back to Wirlflock.

 

[Nizmoose]

Nizmoose,
Beerbelly Brewing sells Brewbrite.

I mix it into around 100 mls of clean cold water and add the slurry 10 minutes before flame out.
You can see it clump the protein together before your eyes....I would never go back to Wirlflock.

Cheers dicko had a good look into brewbrite before and looks like I'll give it a whirl (pun intended). Not saying whirlfloc is useless of course and I'll be using all the tabs but I'll definitely be comparing and seeing what I prefer over the next few weeks!

 

[dicko]

The Brewbrite listed on BB's site says it does not need slurrying but I slurry it and it seems to work much better.
The first lot I used was from Craftbrewer and I did not know I had to slurry it and was very dissappointed but the next time I used it I had done more r search and slurrying definately worked a lot better.
My conclusion is that there must be two types of brewbrite but both seem to work well in a slurry.

Good brewing

 

[Jack of all biers]

Now this may not help with your 'kettle losses' problem as per your OP, but to help reduce some of the protein problems you have with coagulation, have you tried 90 min boils. Whilst not the be all and end all, I have always conducted 90 min boils and only recently tried whirlfloc (at 15 mins before shut off) finding it has helped reduce chill haze to nothing (this is in addition to lagering for 1+ months). I must say though the difference was not that noticable as compared to my usual 90 min boils + lagering (without whirlfloc).

I also use a very 'technical method' of ensuring reduction in large protein particles/shredded hops. It's called a sanitized sieve and stocking . Sieve with stocking wrapped under it with the combined filter resting ontop of the fermentor. The wort pours through it into the fermentor with the stocking stopping most protein coagulate from getting into the fermentor (clear wort is filtered through) and at the same time creates better aeration.

Whilst not the most professional set up it works and like others, I pour the remaining litre or two from the kettle into the same filter and freeze for later use. By this method, I don't have to put in a container and chill settle the trub, it is already seperated.

Simple and effective.

 

[Nizmoose]

Haha funnily enough the batch in question was my first 90 minute boil haha, I actually forgot about that. So yeah I made an adjustment there as well to no avail