Whirlpool

[Thefatdoghead]

So I did my first all grain batch (oktoberfest) and everything was spot on surprisingly!! But when I whirlpool'ed it didn't seem to work as expected. When first runnings came I recirculated back to the mash tun for 5mins and the wort was running clear, I used whirlfloc but i didnt use a hop sock. I then finished the boil and cooled with an emersion chiller. Then I drained the wort ran clear to the valve outlet but the rest (3 litres worth) I was not able to collect because of all the matter. So I made 25 litres but only collected 22 litres. Is this normal or should I let it settle for longer than 20min's?
I also did a pale ale and another Lager the next day and same thing happened.
cheers

 

[ashley_leask]

That's the normal trub loss for me. 3L is as good as I can get it down to.

 

[Wolfy]

Whole or pellet hops, how is your pickup tube situated, do you have a hop filter/blocker? (Picture of your setup might help, but 3L does seem like a bit more than normal)

 

[Pennywise]

I'll be following this one, two batch's in on my new kettle and I'm leaving about 3.5L in there because of all the carp settled from the whirlfloc, my whirlpool doesn't form a cone what so ever, still teething though

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Whole or pellet hops, how is your pickup tube situated, do you have a hop filter/blocker? (Picture of your setup might help, but 3L does seem like a bit more than normal)

Pellet hops, I don't have a filter but I have a mesh bazooca screen I can use. I made a pick-up tube but didn't use it because I thought it might get blocked. I didn't seem to get a cone at all. I have a 50L pot and the valve outlet is just above the lower radius.

 

[stillscottish]

I generally have about 2 litres of crap left in the boiler. I pour it into a big jug, cover and let it sit in the fridge to settle. Usually squeeze another litre out of it.
I also tip my mash tun up at 45 deg and let that drain while the kettle comes up to the boil. another couple of litres there.

Scottish still

Campbell

 

[dougsbrew]

i have very little waste, i use a wort filter.

 

[hsb]

FWIW I wouldn't worry so much about a couple of litres of wastage, unless boil space is an issue, just put more water in the mash/sparge. You don't have to drain every drop from the kettle, use some for starters, or just tip it.

 

[fergi]

i turn off my gas from my 60 min boil, leave it for 5 minutes then stir like crazy,

then i let it sit for 20 mins,
then i find that i have a nice collection of trub in the centre of my pot, drain it into my NC container and i am generally left with approximately 2 to 3 litres of
trub and wort, i reckon i could get another liter of wort but i like the idea of a clean wort in my cube, i dont use a filter in my kettle, just drain it straight from the tap.i dont think there is really a need for a fancy trub filter, if you are careful and dont try and drain the guts out of the kettle.

fergi

 

[razz]

i have very little waste, i use a wort filter.

View attachment 47299

What is the wort filter made from dougsbrew?

 

[Thefatdoghead]

FWIW I wouldn't worry so much about a couple of litres of wastage, unless boil space is an issue, just put more water in the mash/sparge. You don't have to drain every drop from the kettle, use some for starters, or just tip it.

Yeah good point I'll just plan on 3L of dead space next time.
cheers

 

[stillscottish]

FWIW I wouldn't worry so much about a couple of litres of wastage,

Couple of litres is about 10% wastage.
As far as I'm concerned, doing a couple of things with almost no extra effort to recover that wastage is worth it.

 

[dougsbrew]

What is the wort filter made from dougsbrew?

heres the linky with some more pics. DB.
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...ic=52033&hl=

 

[razz]

Thanks champ.

 

[bignath]

my boiler is a 50lt keg (domed bottoms are perfect for a nice tight compact cone of crap). I reckon i leave about 4-500mls left which is mostly absorbed by the hop debris. As far as actual wort looking liquid, there would be lucky to be 250ml of it in the bottom of my boiler.

I've simply adjusted my recipe's with this in mind, and i plan on getting 20l into a cube cooled next morning, and i typically get within a hundred ml or so every time.

EDIT: once it's draining, i keep a close eye on the level and when it gets to the tap level, i carefully tilt the boiler to get all i can out of it before the crap starts getting picked up too.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

There is a moderate amount of technique involved in getting a good whirlpool cone and maintaining it while you drain out the kettle. There are a few threads/posts about it, so have a search around. If you draw blanks yell out and we can drop in some detail for you.

The other thing is that you are chilling in your kettle - depending on how your whirlfloc performs, what could well be happening is that your cold break is forming and partially settling out across the top of the cone formed by the larger particles of hot breeak and hop pellets. Its hard to tell without seeing it, but you might have a reasonable cone thats just buried under a bit of a blanket of slow settling cold break so you cant see it. In which case you would be OK to suck up a bit of the cold break part of the trub without very much quality concern. That might well get you the liter or so thats the difference between the whirlpool performance you are getting and what would be considered reasonably good. I suggest that next brew you cut off the flow to your fermenter when you start to pull any trub at all - but then continue to draw it off into a separate bucket and see how things "pull apart" so to speak in your trub cone. If you get three layers of stuff, most likely the bottom will be mainly hop pellets, the second will be hotbreak and the top will be coldbreak.

Whirlpooling can be a bit of an art - if your're lucky it might just work. But sometimes you have to try a few variations and tweaks to get it to happen in your particular kettle. I was never ever, in over a hundred brews worth of trying, able to get it to work well in my converted keg kettle. But in my newer flat bottomed kettle, it only took a couple of brews to get it to the point where i waste only a couple of hundred ml of good wort.

If your trouble persists beyond a few brews worth of expimenting, also try tweaking the amount of whirlfloc you use. Most homebrewers tend to use more of the stuff than is optimal... So i would start by reducing the amount - but if that doesn't work either, try it the other way too. It can make a pretty big difference (or it can make none) so its worth a try.

Keep trying, the problem is most likely to be lack of practise - and thats the easiest problem of all to fix.

TB

 

[Thefatdoghead]

There is a moderate amount of technique involved in getting a good whirlpool cone and maintaining it while you drain out the kettle. There are a few threads/posts about it, so have a search around. If you draw blanks yell out and we can drop in some detail for you.

The other thing is that you are chilling in your kettle - depending on how your whirlfloc performs, what could well be happening is that your cold break is forming and partially settling out across the top of the cone formed by the larger particles of hot breeak and hop pellets. Its hard to tell without seeing it, but you might have a reasonable cone thats just buried under a bit of a blanket of slow settling cold break so you cant see it. In which case you would be OK to suck up a bit of the cold break part of the trub without very much quality concern. That might well get you the liter or so thats the difference between the whirlpool performance you are getting and what would be considered reasonably good. I suggest that next brew you cut off the flow to your fermenter when you start to pull any trub at all - but then continue to draw it off into a separate bucket and see how things "pull apart" so to speak in your trub cone. If you get three layers of stuff, most likely the bottom will be mainly hop pellets, the second will be hotbreak and the top will be coldbreak.

Whirlpooling can be a bit of an art - if your're lucky it might just work. But sometimes you have to try a few variations and tweaks to get it to happen in your particular kettle. I was never ever, in over a hundred brews worth of trying, able to get it to work well in my converted keg kettle. But in my newer flat bottomed kettle, it only took a couple of brews to get it to the point where i waste only a couple of hundred ml of good wort.

If your trouble persists beyond a few brews worth of expimenting, also try tweaking the amount of whirlfloc you use. Most homebrewers tend to use more of the stuff than is optimal... So i would start by reducing the amount - but if that doesn't work either, try it the other way too. It can make a pretty big difference (or it can make none) so its worth a try.

Keep trying, the problem is most likely to be lack of practise - and thats the easiest problem of all to fix.

TB

Thanks for all that TB I have been throwing a whole whirlfloc tab in so ill try half as per instructions. It's also not to much drama to put the trub in my 5L erlenmeyer and see if I actually have a cone at the end. I totally agree I think it's going to be just trying a few things differently and see what works best in my pots. cheers for all that mate

 

[jonw]

...you might have a reasonable cone thats just buried under a bit of a blanket of slow settling cold break so you cant see it. In which case you would be OK to suck up a bit of the cold break part of the trub without very much quality concern.

That was a good tip - thanks TB. I'm making 40L batches in my 58L keggle, and I've been losing 8L to trub since I recently started chilling. Whatever I did, the whirlpool didn't work. On my last brew, I transferred the clear wort to the fermentor, and then transferred some of the 'trub' to a clean cube - I found a trub cone hidden under the cold break. I think I probably only left a litre or two in the kettle, and had about 7 or 8L in the cube. I left that in my keg fridge over night, and managed to pout about another 4L of clear wort from cube to fermenter.

 

[pbrosnan]

I'll be following this one, two batch's in on my new kettle and I'm leaving about 3.5L in there because of all the carp settled from the whirlfloc, my whirlpool doesn't form a cone what so ever, still teething though

Well there's your problem, too much carp. They'll clog things every time.

 

[Newbee(r)]

If you get three layers of stuff, most likely the bottom will be mainly hop pellets, the second will be hotbreak and the top will be coldbreak.

TB

I ended up with this situation today for the first time, I usually get less than 5mm - but today the combined the layers make a total of about 5cm in the bottom of the fermenter 2cm bottom light colour, 1 cm darker middle, and 1cm ligher almost white colour (plastic white fermenter so can't be more specific) then clear wort. Should I rack to secondary and re-pitch before the yeast really gets going (starter of 1056 pitched about 4 hours ago), I whirflocced so am hoping it will condense but after 5 hours of being in, it seems settled. Used galaxy flowers (pretty fine from the vacuum pack) and a hop sock, with 1 addition of pellets.

Should I get another fermenter sanitised, rack and repitch or is this not enough to worry about?