When Can You Whirlpool?

[PistolPatch]

My question is, "Does the whirlpool have to be done at the end of the boil?"

If the answer is obvious then no need to worry about reading the below

...

Hopefully the answer is simple as I have troops coming around in about 8 hours to do the next lot of brewing - two double batches. I don't want a repeat of tonight.

High tech stuff like ball-valves, I already know are convenient on the day but a PITA in preparation, cleaning etc. BUT, they don't make auto-syphons like they used to

The old ones worked bloody well but now they have a larger diameter and basically don't work. Because of this I have just gone, "high tech," and put ball-valves on my two kettles and even bought a plate chiller not to mention the fancy ball-valves I have on my fermenters!

I had my first brew day with the kettle ball-valves today and was pretty dissapointed.

Last brewday, a fortnight ago, I whirlpooled my two brews at the end of the boil and left them overnight (second time ever) as I mashed in at 6pm. This worked a treat and my auto-syphon, crap as it was, still managed to suck clear wort to a successful degree. I kegged those beers today and they are fine - both FWH, another thing I did for the first time.

Tonight, I didn't whirlpool at the end of the boil. What I did was threw my immersion chillers in and when the wort had reached 30 degrees, I pulled them out and then whirlpooled.

Both kettles sat undisturbed after whirlpooling for about 3 hours due to some unexpected (hopefully first-time)plumbing problems with ball-valves and plate chiller.

I then ran the ale through my new plate chiller (another first time effort) and then the lager through the plate chiller but with the water being pre-chilled on entry to the plate chiller though this is probably not relevant to my whirlpooling question!

I had a heap of trub left behind in both kettles. I haven't measured it but I am guessing at 4cm which is about 7lts in my kettle. It is cloudy as buggery whereas last week it was all nicely whirlpooled and clear as a bell.

I have no idea bout whirlpooling so I suppose my question is, "Does it have to be done at the end of the boil?"

I will now put that last sentence at the top of all that stuff I just wrote!


Pat

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

Hey pat old mate ,,, Don't know about the cool whirlpool thing but I allways get a good result by whirlpooling about 10 mins after flame out ,,, I gave up useing any flocking agent quite a few batches back as I don't see any better results with it ..

So flame out , wait 10 , whirlpool , wait about 15 to 20 , and either no chill or run thru plate chiller ...

Cheers and good luck with todays lot...

 

[bradsbrew]

Hey pat old mate ,,, Don't know about the cool whirlpool thing but I allways get a good result by whirlpooling about 10 mins after flame out ,,, I gave up useing any flocking agent quite a few batches back as I don't see any better results with it ..

So flame out , wait 10 , whirlpool , wait about 15 to 20 , and either no chill or run thru plate chiller ...

Cheers and good luck with todays lot...

I take it you are using a hopsock. How would this go if not using a sock I take it that it would effect your late hopping??? I have for the last couple of brews whirlpool at flame out and leave the hopsock in and drain 10 - 15 min later but i am thinking this would not be ideal ??

Brad

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

hey brad , no, no hop sock up here ...just chuck em straight in ... all pellets ..

 

[Screwtop]

Not much sense whirlpooling during boil Pat, stuff is being bubbled around so you wont achieve any settling.

SHITE Pat I nearly fell off my chair. You've gone high tech!!!!!!!!! :lol:

Mate you have what you need, start to recirc through the plate chiller 15 min before end of boil to sanitise, full bore wort but no water flow (be sure your water and wort flow in opposite directions through the PC when chilling). Either plumb a return to your kettle or use a length of copper pipe with a 90 bend on the end. You want this to run down the inside of the kettle with the right angle about 20mm from the bottom and parallel to the kettle wall so the returning wort flows around the kettle bottom forming the whirlpool, it is slow but works. After flameout start your water flow and recirc for 20min to whirlpool. Then cut back the wort flow to about 1/3 or 1/4 the temp out of the PC will drop drastically then and you can pump directly to your fermenter, if the wort is sub 20 put the yeast in the bottom and let the wort dribble in from above to aerate.

You should have nice clear wort, all the break and trub will be in the centre of your kettle bottom.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

Hey screwy , Pats gone MID tech ,, I don't think there is a pump in the system yet lol ... He's not a REAL brewer just yet.. lol

give him time , its a slow process, teaching an old dog new tricks ... ..

Cheers

 

[PistolPatch]

Yeah, get back on your chair Screwy Going to keep things simple here as much as possible! (Thanks though.!)

I'm like old mate Bunyip and didn't use a hopsock. I wanted to whirlpool later for two reasons, one being to avoid aeration and the second being so I could use my immersion chiller to take the guts of the heat out. Anyway, it was a spectacular failure!

Dunno what to try today as I have to cool 2 doubles. The sooner I learn no chill the better

Thanks for the good luck wishes. I think I'll be needing it...

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

one being to avoid aeration

HaHa here we go again ,, don't sweat on it , I don't think this is a big issue to us HBers

Dunno what to try today as I have to cool 2 doubles. The sooner I learn no chill the better
Qick trip to supercheep befor you start mate ,, too ezy..4 new cubes and its done..

Thanks for the good luck wishes. I think I'll be needing it...

tou'll be right , your an old pro..

 

[Ecosse]

Hey Screwy,

Have you plumbed the whirlpool return back to your kettle? I've been pegging a hose for the return but it's a bugger to get the angle right for the whirlpool, a plumbed return might just fix it.

 

[eamonnfoley]

Hey pat old mate ,,, Don't know about the cool whirlpool thing but I allways get a good result by whirlpooling about 10 mins after flame out ,,, I gave up useing any flocking agent quite a few batches back as I don't see any better results with it ..

So flame out , wait 10 , whirlpool , wait about 15 to 20 , and either no chill or run thru plate chiller ...

Cheers and good luck with todays lot...

Whats the purpose of waiting 10 mins before starting the whirlpool? I just start the whirlpool at flame out. I figure it starts to drop the temp straight away, which is beneficial, especially for no chill. Then about 5 minutes into the whirlpool I add the 0 min hop addition if required. Then I wait 10-15 mins or so after the whirpool before draining to the cube. By the time its going into the cube it can be down below 90C, maybe 85C. For some reason I am scared to use my plate chiller with only a gravity setup, as I dont have a pump to force it through.

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

Foles , I have a march pump but as yet havn't used it to recic to whirlpool ,, I use it to recirc a bit of hot wort threw the plate chiller but only to sanitize , then all gravity after the settleing ...

I add my flame out addition at flame out , gass off , chuck hops in .. 10mins ... big whirlpool with mash paddle ... 15min ... drain off ...

I don't know about best practice but its the way I do it and it works for me .. h34r:

:icon_cheers:

 

[bradsbrew]

I add my flame out addition at flame out , gass off , chuck hops in .. 10mins ... big whirlpool with mash paddle ... 15min ... drain off ...
I don't know about best practice but its the way I do it and it works for me .. h34r:

:icon_cheers:

So thats 25min from final hops to drain is it Ned. Mines about 15min but i think i will try to increase so as to utilise hops a bit more but have thought to long and it may add a bit more bitterness??

brad

 

[Kai]

Whats the purpose of waiting 10 mins before starting the whirlpool? I just start the whirlpool at flame out. I figure it starts to drop the temp straight away, which is beneficial, especially for no chill. Then about 5 minutes into the whirlpool I add the 0 min hop addition if required. Then I wait 10-15 mins or so after the whirpool before draining to the cube. By the time its going into the cube it can be down below 90C, maybe 85C. For some reason I am scared to use my plate chiller with only a gravity setup, as I dont have a pump to force it through.

Some people find that whirlpooling is less effective immediately after the boil due to convection currents still occurring from the hot kettle bottom.

Myself, I just kill the heat to element and drain straight off through the hopscreen.

 

[Screwtop]

Hey Screwy,

Have you plumbed the whirlpool return back to your kettle? I've been pegging a hose for the return but it's a bugger to get the angle right for the whirlpool, a plumbed return might just fix it.

Like this



Screwy

 

[katzke]

I'm like old mate Bunyip and didn't use a hopsock. I wanted to whirlpool later for two reasons, one being to avoid aeration and the second being so I could use my immersion chiller to take the guts of the heat out. Anyway, it was a spectacular failure!

I thought plates would cool hell its self. Why pre-chill? Even the small home built counter flow chillers will chill boiling wort to pitching temp.

 

[Screwtop]

I thought plates would cool hell its self. Why pre-chill? Even the small home built counter flow chillers will chill boiling wort to pitching temp.

Maybe in Oregon Katzke :lol:

30plate chiller and winter temps here (sub tropic) get me down to about 17C (62.6 F), brewers further South should manage a bit less.

Screwy

 

[RdeVjun]

Some people find that whirlpooling is less effective immediately after the boil due to convection currents still occurring from the hot kettle bottom.

Myself, I just kill the heat to element and drain straight off through the hopscreen.

I second that- its pointless whirlpooling until convection has ceased as there will invariably be a central column of break/debris in a continual fountain up to the surface and it'll be a couple of minutes at least before its completely gone.

Whole hops (if you happen to use them, get plugs or whole) make a half- decent filter/ hopscreen of sorts - occasionally I just pour the lot (from a 19L stockpot) into a cube through a funnel with a large strainer in it, have to empty it at least once but catches an enormous amount of break and other hoppy debris if done carefully. Considering the smaller amounts of debris I'm seeing in the bottom of my primary fermenting vessels, I'm thinking it works quite satisfactorily.
HSA proponents would most likely frown on that though... I'm ambivalent about it, not really sure if its a problem for me- thought it was originally but am presently undecided.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Pat, your cloudiness might just be cold break. CB particle size is really small and it just doesn't settle out properly in a whirlpool. Mostly when people chill their wort in the kettle - what they think of as cold break settling or whirlpooling out... is just hotbreak thats had more chance to settle and flocculate. Cold break is a bitch to separate even on a commercial basis, which is why most breweries don't bother.

So what "might" have happened, is that during your whirpool, your hotbreak and hops do the normal thing and pile up in the middle - but the cold-break which has formed from cooling things down to 30 is still more or less in suspension and settled a bit over the three hours in a "blanket" effect. Not very well, which gave you your extra cms of break and the cloudiness.

Then running it through the plate chiller would have only caused a little more cold break and made it seem even worse.

My guess is that this is stuff that would normally make it into your fermenter anyway ... its just that the variations on standard processes that happened to you, meant that you saw it this time where you usually wouldn't. If you had cooled the wort, whirpooled & racked immediately .... you would have been sucking through the same amount of cold break, spread out evenly through your wort, which would have looked pretty clear. So the same result at the end of the day.

Whirlpooling post chill is pretty common - I've done it successfully many times - and its certainly common enough so that it shouldn't be a problem in and of itself. Maybe just a matter of getting used to teh process and ironing out the bugs?

TB

 

[PistolPatch]

Thanks guys :icon_cheers:

Thirsty, thanks for your answer as you are the first to say you have tried whirlpooling cold and say it isn't a problem which is great to know. (Maybe I didn't whirl those two hard enough?) I didn't write my original post very well as on a re-read it implies the drained wort was cloudy. It was actually fine but what was left in the kettle was spread out flat. That's what I should have said!

Brewed again on Sunday, two double batches and I whirlpooled these 15 minutes from end of boil. The ale I ran through the plate chiller and what I did with the lager was sterilise the immersion chiller 30 minutes after whirlpooling and then very gently lowered it in the kettle - I'll try anything at least once. The ale whirlpool turned out as flat as described above whilst the lager whirlpool ended up looking as seen in this post

This was Ok but did not have the clear ring of wort on the outside like I got the first time I hot whirlpooled. Mind you, it was a double batch with flowers as well.

Anyway, it was an exhausting brewing weekend with heaps of amusing disasters.

I think I might make myself a false bottom out of termimesh that sits about 2cm above the kettle floor so as it will acts as a hop screen as well as keeping the BIAB bag off the bottom during flame additions.

Thanks again,
Pat

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks guys :icon_cheers:

Thirsty, thanks for your answer as you are the first to say you have tried whirlpooling cold and say it isn't a problem which is great to know. (Maybe I didn't whirl those two hard enough?) I didn't write my original post very well as on a re-read it implies the drained wort was cloudy. It was actually fine but what was left in the kettle was spread out flat. That's what I should have said!

Brewed again on Sunday, two double batches and I whirlpooled these 15 minutes from end of boil. The ale I ran through the plate chiller and what I did with the lager was sterilise the immersion chiller 30 minutes after whirlpooling and then very gently lowered it in the kettle - I'll try anything at least once. The ale whirlpool turned out as flat as described above whilst the lager whirlpool ended up looking as seen in this post

This was Ok but did not have the clear ring of wort on the outside like I got the first time I hot whirlpooled. Mind you, it was a double batch with flowers as well.

Anyway, it was an exhausting brewing weekend with heaps of amusing disasters.

I think I might make myself a false bottom out of termimesh that sits about 2cm above the kettle floor so as it will acts as a hop screen as well as keeping the BIAB bag off the bottom during flame additions.

Thanks again,
Pat

Not just me Pat - check out Mr Malty for a look at the whirlpool chiller - specifically designed for chilling and whirpooling (with the whirpool rest happening cold) and most of the people I have talked to on the BN ... all whirlpooling cold (or sometimes while cooling) if they use an immersion chiller. Its pretty stock standard. So it can be made to work alright.