Trub, Filtering, Off Flavours, Hops

[sosman]

I have read quite a few posts in various forums on the topic of whether to dump everything from brewpot into the fermenter or not.

Although not clear cut, most people seem to be of the opinion that keeping most of the crap out of the fermenter is "a good thing" and I was prepared to believe their citations of various articles, yadda yadda yadda.

My recent experience leads me to speculate that you can miss out on a lot of hop flavour by "filtering out the crap".

I brewed two very similar recipes (APA), identical hopping schedule (30g @ 60, 20g @ 15 and 50 g @ 5 of Cascade pellets). The first saw everthing go intot he fermenter. The second one I was a bit paranoid and left some precious wort in the brewpot along with lots of residue.

The first one has great hop flavour/arome but you wouldn't recognize the second as the same recipe, minimal flavour and aroma with bitterness prominent.

Everything is going in next time round or until something changes my mind.

As an observation, in areas like this, I get the distinct feeling that the "can create off-flavours" line gets repeated far more often than is actually, genuinely experienced. Ditto for oxidation, light-strike, autolysis, butty flavours , ...

I welcome the comments of other brewers, particularly anecdotes from personal experience (vs you read it in a book somewhere).

 

[jayse]

Had too many beers to type out a worthy post right now mate.
i'll get back to you there.
the nature of my system allows me to see a distinct pile on the bottom of the kettle which is very tightly formed and i can get every drop of clear wort from around it.


cheers jayse

 

[big d]

my fears to a tea sosman but with using a ccfc.all it seems ends up in the fermenter but apparently to no harm. <_<

cheers
big d

 

[devilsaltarboy]

Yes you are correct removing all the trub is not a good thing, charlie paprizan states not only does it remove flavour it also means you need to add extra oxygen since the lipids in the trub are extractable in some oxygen form. A tell tale sign is apparently an onion flavour.
I whirl pool let it settle ten minutes, drain the boiler thorugh an ordinary strainer and tilt boiler when dregs are there, I avoid tipping the majority of hop crap through but get prolly about 10%.

 

[jayse]

do you use a CFC or a imersion devilboy?

jayse

 

[devilsaltarboy]

do you use a CFC or a imersion devilboy?

jayse

Immersion chiller jayse,
The homebrewers companion concentrates on both immersion and CFC, if you use a CFC you could whirlpool the hot wort and transfer to another container (I personally dont like this suggested method even though hotbreak makes up around 2/3 of trub) The other suggest is to collect wort like you normally do into fermenter and just run it through a strainer into the other fermenter tilting the fermenter at the end, you shouldnt loose too much wort.

 

[jayse]

iam using a cfc so basically end up with all of the cold break in the fermentor.
so according to the what you posted iam getting 1/3 of the whole break if using a imersion chiller.
is this correct if so is this the best way?
basically i should not need to collect any of the trub from the boiler.
correct?

jayse

 

[sosman]

Well maybe I didn't explain myself very well.

Hot and cold break aside, I am speculating that the missing hop flavour was largely in the hop residue which I also imagine settles fastest and is the majority of what you leave behind when you whirlpool.

Anyone tried the "with and without" experiment side by side?

 

[Murray]

Sosman, are you partial mashing, or is this AG?

 

[Guest Lurker]

Havent done the controlled side by side experiment. But my last hop addition, 5 mins or 1 mins before flame out are tied up in the leg of a pantyhose. When I transfer from the pot/kettle I leave behind the bittering hops/trub but transfer the stocking bag which floats around in the fermenter. Basically being a tight arse and trying to get flameout hops and dry hop hops from the same source. Seem to get reasonable hop flavour, but then I sometimes add more in the fermenter anyway.

 

[sosman]

Sosman, are you partial mashing, or is this AG?

The two recipes that I was comparing were both partial mash.

I am going to brew an AG on the weekend but the recipe is quite different (witbier) and only uses bittering hops so it probably isn't that relevant to my original observation.

 

[Murray]

Its just that the amount of hot break is going to be much greater in an AG batch, so throwing the whole lot in could cause problems not shown up by partials.

From my personal observations excessive hot break leads to bad flavours, but cold break and hop material don't. I haven't noticed an improvement in flavour from including hop material in the brew, however the hop material has rendered racking the beer near impossible for me, so I always avoid transferring it.

Also, looking at your recipe, I'd say most of the additional flavour would be from the 50g of hops in the last 5 minutes. This is quite a lot as a late addition and when transferred to the fermentor will most likely be contributing flavour similar to that from dry-hopping effect.

Just some ideas.

 

[matti]

I dug up this thread to find what is the general consensus is with allowing trub into the fermenter.

For a 23 litre batch I generally allow for little cold break to follow from kettle.
It ends up about 1/2-1cm in fermenter with partial and extracts.
Ag a little bit more.
I always rack my beer after 7-10 days so most of the impartial flavour are removed.
Using finings I can get rid of most chill haze unless I am intending brewing Ipa or APAs.

I am aware that brewing ales this is not always a bad thing but how much is too much?

 

[Pumpy]

My False bottom in the kettle stops a great deal of the hot/cold break but ,it really does not seem to affect the flavour of the beer if a fair bit of the hot cold break goes in the fermenter .
Its all good

pumpy