Whirlpool Process

[Vanoontour]

Hey All,

I'm after a quick run down of the process at the end of the boil. I have finally mounted a tap and pick up tube to my pot and got a few questions. My plan is too do the following,
Flame out
Wait for convections to die down a bit
Whirlpool
Drain via tap while wort is still moving as part of whirlpool.

Is this correct? OR to you wait until after the whirlpool has settled before starting to drain? Does it matter?

Cheers

 

[seemax]

I usually add flame out hops, whirlpool for few minutes, cover on and sit for 5-10mins until the convection stops or slows a lot.

Hose into cube, open tap and make sure it has good suction.... that's it!

 

[felten]

usually wait for the whirlpool to stop and the trub to settle in the middle of the pot

 

[QldKev]

Basically correct just the last step.

You need to wait until all the **** in suspension has dropped out. Could be 10min or more. I also find having the lid on helps stop the currents in the wort better, and allows it to drop out better. When you drain open the lid just enough to prevent a vacuum in the pot occurring.

The key is you want to be draining clear wort if possible. So lid / no lid etc is something you can experiment with.

QldKev

 

[balconybrewer]

ive always been confused by this stage and all the info is very contradictory.

if you add your flame out hops, whirlpool for 2mins to get a good vortex and then let it stop spinning all of a sudden your late hops have all been in boiling wort for an extra 10 mins.

i have no dramas whirlpooling and letting a lighty hopped beer sit for 5-6 mins to settle but it is a tricky question that i have never really found the answer to when talking about a beer that has a large amount of late hops.

i did a green flash WCIPA clone last night and process was as follows;

start whirlpooling with plate chiller in-line 2 mins before flameout to sanatise the chiller and get the vortext happening. turned off the burner and waited 1 min for decent vortex. turned off the pump and added flameout hops. let settle for about 1-2 mins and then pumped through the chiller

im not saying this is the answer, just what i have come up with for beers with heaps of late hops, would also love some feedback

cheers

 

[Malted]

I don't wait for the convection currents to stop before whirlpooling. I give it a good stir straight after turning off the heat, let it go for a bit and give it another swirl and then wait. I drain out the wort once the wort has stopped moving and the trub/hop cone has had a chance to form in the middle and drop out of suspension to settle on the bottom.

Once convection currents stop the bits drop to the bottom, the whirlpool is to make them drop in a nice clump in the middle. My devices can take 1/2 hour or longer for the convection currents to stop. I was worried that if I wait for the convection currents to stop that all of my hop additions would be sitting in wort hot enough to keep extracting bitterness (i.e. wort at hop isomerisation temps during the whirpool and the time whilst waiting for the convection currents to stop stirring it up).

What I have tried a couple of times now is to do the above but after only 5 minutes I run a large proportion of the wort quickly through my plate chiller into a sterilised bucket and then dump it back into the kettle. The wort in the kettle is then probably down to 50oC or so. I then whirlpool it again and let it sit for as long as I like and thus get a nice clear wort with a good compact trub cone underneath and my mind is at ease because it is below isomerisation temps.

Edit: balconybrewer must have been typing the same time as me but I was slower. Yeah I have the same issue with whirlpooling as you.

 

[argon]

When I used to whirlpool I would flameout, wait 5 mins for convection currents to stop. Whirlpool for a couple of minutes, wait another 15 mins for motion to stop and stuff to drop out. Then drain via a side pickup. Usually around a 20min wait post flameout process.

However a 2mm perf SS false bottom and central pickup with the use of some hop leaves as a filter bed eliminates the whirlpool step for me all together and saves me that time and inconsistency. Now I flameout and immediately open the tap and start chilling straight away. Crystal clear wort out of the kettle immediately. And with a central pickup under a filter bed I lose only about 500mL to kettle trub etc.

 

[Malted]

When I used to whirlpool I would flameout, wait 5 mins for convection currents to stop. Whirlpool for a couple of minutes, wait another 15 mins for motion to stop and stuff to drop out. Then drain via a side pickup. Usually around a 20min wait post flameout process.

However a 2mm perf SS false bottom and central pickup with the use of some hop leaves as a filter bed eliminates the whirlpool step for me all together and saves me that time and inconsistency. Now I flameout and immediately open the tap and start chilling straight away. Crystal clear wort out of the kettle immediately. And with a central pickup under a filter bed I lose only about 500mL to kettle trub etc.

So your kettle is like a mashtun? Any pictures?

 

[warra48]

ive always been confused by this stage and all the info is very contradictory.

if you add your flame out hops, whirlpool for 2mins to get a good vortex and then let it stop spinning all of a sudden your late hops have all been in boiling wort for an extra 10 mins.

i have no dramas whirlpooling and letting a lighty hopped beer sit for 5-6 mins to settle but it is a tricky question that i have never really found the answer to when talking about a beer that has a large amount of late hops.

i did a green flash WCIPA clone last night and process was as follows;

start whirlpooling with plate chiller in-line 2 mins before flameout to sanatise the chiller and get the vortext happening. turned off the burner and waited 1 min for decent vortex. turned off the pump and added flameout hops. let settle for about 1-2 mins and then pumped through the chiller

im not saying this is the answer, just what i have come up with for beers with heaps of late hops, would also love some feedback

cheers

I agree with you about contradictory information.

The difficulty with using a plate chiller, it seems to me, is that you drain your kettle as part of your chilling process. Hence whirlpooling won't work too well, because of the vortices from the heat in the kettle, and the fact you want to chill post boil as soon as practicable.

I think it works much better if you use an immersion chiller, take the chiller out after chilling, and then whirlpool.
That's the process I use with my system, but even then the whirlpooling is only partly effective because of the presence of the tap etc in my kettle.
Probably works best if you have a kettle without other hardware, and syphon after chilling.

 

[argon]

Exactly the same as a mash tun. Here's a couple of ****** pics.

I modified the pickup so that there is a threaded rod going through the false bottom almost touching the floor of the kettle. This way I lose very little by way of kettle loss.

It's best to use a plug or 2 of hop leaf to act as a filter bed before the perf. Once drained there is a big pile of hop and break material on the falsy and the exposed base of the kettle is pretty much dry. Before setting up the 70L kettle I used to use an 80L keggle with side pickup and could lose 2-3L.

 

[felten]

ive always been confused by this stage and all the info is very contradictory.

if you add your flame out hops, whirlpool for 2mins to get a good vortex and then let it stop spinning all of a sudden your late hops have all been in boiling wort for an extra 10 mins.

i have no dramas whirlpooling and letting a lighty hopped beer sit for 5-6 mins to settle but it is a tricky question that i have never really found the answer to when talking about a beer that has a large amount of late hops.

im not saying this is the answer, just what i have come up with for beers with heaps of late hops, would also love some feedback

cheers

Have you found you lose too much aroma from the late hops if they sit in the kettle for the extra time?

I wouldn't worry about it unless your beer is coming out too bitter for your taste, in which case I would just reduce the bittering addition to compensate. Another alternative is to use a hopback, so the beer is chilled right after it passes through the hops, and it doubles as a trub filter.

Commercial breweries that add WP hops can have them sitting there for up to an hour or more, and that doesn't seem to cause too many problems.

 

[pk.sax]

Me thinks I'm buying another falsie.
Thanks Aargon. That is a great solution.

 

[dmac80]

I had a similar kettle setup to Argon, but i put a hole in the centre of a stainless mesh splatter guard (removed the ring from the outside) and had the splatter guard mesh attached to the underside of the false bottom by the fittings through the centre of the false bottom. I used this arrangement with pellets as well as flowers and it worked fine for both.

 

[Florian]

I've stopped whirlpooling all together about 10 or 15 brews ago. I've noticed that I get more clear wort into the cube without whirlpooling.

The tap on the Braumeister is a few cm above the bottom. When I whirlpool, I have a trub cone in the middle which extends above the height of the tap. When i then tilt the BM towards the end of transfer the cone slowly starts drifting towards the tap and eventually into the cube.

Without whirlpooling, I have a flat compact trub layer on the bottom which sits well below tapp level. Therefore, when I tilt the BM, the wort just runs over that layer without pulling the trub with it towards the tap.

The difference in the amount of clear wort I get might not be huge, but at the same time I also avoid having to whirlpool and possibly introducing pollutants into the wort that I don't want in there.

I now put the lid on during the last one or two minutes of the boil, just after adding brew brite, and leave it there until everything is transferred. It also means that my wort is generally a few degrees warmer when transferring which works well for the way I brew. I now start transferring when the wort reaches 94 degrees which i have found gives me just the right 'trub compactness'.

 

[balconybrewer]

anyone out there that has the whirlpool situation sorted that uses a beerbelly hopscreen.

i am siding with argon in that im moving away from whirlpooling altogether and letting the hop screen filter most of my trub out. even if i get some hot break through i am still getting heaps of cold break from the chiller yet beers are still clear after ferment so maybe its a whole lot of work for nothing.

more input from similar setups would be helpful.

cheers

 

[husky]

I do a 90 min boil
Add 60 min hops after 30 mins of boiling
turn off elements at 20 and continue to brew as normal.
By the time I get down to 0 theres no convection currents and I whirlpool for a minute then drain through palte chiller.
After 20 minutes of no heat most things that will drop out have already and the wort is still 95 to 100 degrees to extract hop oils.
Right or wrong I dont know but this is what I am doing for highly hopped brews.

 

[kelbygreen]

I cant see why you would use a pick up in the middle of the pot??? my pick up is bent like a S comes out bends the direction you will whirlpool (this sucks crap out of the tube and wont force crap in) then bends back to the wall and bends to follow the shape of the wall of the kettle. When you whirlpool the crap gets sucked into the center if done right then the pick up I use will suck alot out without getting any brake material. Just slow the flow when you hit the trub cone so it doesnt suck crap in.

 

[dmac80]

I cant see why you would use a pick up in the middle of the pot??? my pick up is bent like a S comes out bends the direction you will whirlpool (this sucks crap out of the tube and wont force crap in) then bends back to the wall and bends to follow the shape of the wall of the kettle. When you whirlpool the crap gets sucked into the center if done right then the pick up I use will suck alot out without getting any brake material. Just slow the flow when you hit the trub cone so it doesnt suck crap in.

You don't need to whirlpool with the pickup in the centre, and the wort is drawn from below the screen which strain out any hops and other debris.

This allows you to start draining the kettle straight away, without waiting for anything to settle.

Cheers

 

[kelbygreen]

so all the hot break goes into the fermenter?

 

[dmac80]

No, hops tend to strain that out. Usually have a nice even layer of hops over the top of the screen which will 'filter' the wort as it passes through it.