Wort Lost To Trub And Chiller

[Effect]

Philip,

Hop screens in a boiler are a waste of time. A piece of 12mm copper tube suffices and drains every last drop from your boiler.

cheers

Darren

Yeah, but I like the part where the hops get screened off...

I also think that tipping my kettle, whilst it is still draining will help to collect the majority of the 3 litres that is pooling in the kettle. If there is any left over, I will just scoop it out and strain it (like others here do) and use it for starters.

Thanks for all your help guys.

As for the glitch in beersmith, I will be setting my loss to 0, my deadspace to 0 etc and just do a 23 litre batch. That way I have a better idea of the gravity, boil off and IBUs

 

[jonocarroll]

There is a Beersmith bug, I noticed it this morning.

BUT it can be circumvented.

1. Look at a given recipe using your chosen equipment, and note the Sparge Water allocated and also the Boil Size.

2. Open up your custom equipment file. Change the Loss to Boil Trub and Chiller.

3. Return to your recipe and you will see that NOTHING has changed!

The solution is you now have to rechoose your equipment, this will then update the recipe with the new amounts.
This could be where confusion may exist for some.

Cheers,
Jake

I've noticed this issue also. I'm not so sure it's a bug as such - if you change your equipment somehow you don't necessarily want those changes applied retrospectively to all your recipes. The same happens if you change any of the 'my equipment' settings or 'mash profile' settings, or grain/hop/yeast/water settings. You just need to reselect these to have the changes applied.

 

[real_beer]

But, still no one commented on turning the base to be convex - so all the wort HAS to run down the to the side...

You might be interested in reading this.

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Gear/GSa.../GSboiler.shtml

 

[Thirsty Boy]

If you are using a hopscreen, and this is the way you have chosen to deal with separating hops and break material from your wort... then I see no reason why you wouldn't put it smack at the bottom most point of your converted keg and do the best you can to drain it dry without tipping.

If you whirlpool and deal with separation of hops and trub by carefully draining clean wort from the side... the pick up tube has to be on the edge and off the bottom. And then there is no point in the hop screen.

Or, as it sounds like Darren does, you just suck everything out of the boiler and either send the trub to your fermentor or separate it some other way. Unless he is using lots of flower hops.. which would probably set themselves up a nice little filter bed and give you lovely clean wort again, and no need for a hop screen.

I just tip the couple of litres that are left in my kettle through a filter cloth and re-boil the wort for a starter - I don't like it but have had miserable failures whenever I have tried to recover all my wort but filter out the goo and hops... other people do it successfully though, so I know its just me.

 

[rich_lamb]

No! Never surrender your precious wort to the kettle!

I would suggest in your case to adjust your pickup downward rather than go at your kettle with a hammer (and adjust the bottom of the kettle upward).

And elevate the kettle onto a stand or table if you can - you saw the kung-fu series right, where he escapes the temple by moving the hot cauldron - as the extra siphon height will help suck wort through the muck on your filter.

Also, and this is important; keep your siphon rate fairly low at least initially as this helps prevent screen clogging. What is low? Well, that's the black magic.

 

[Darren]

Interesting, I've just posted a thread about this topic.

Do you have a pic of your copper pick up tube in kettle?

Cheers,
Jake

Hi Jake,

Here it is:

The third picture is how it is used with hop pellets.
The fourth picture has a drawn-on stainless steel "scrubbie" (30c from the supermarket). Just push it onto the tube for hop flowers.

Losses of 2-3 litres of wort in a 22 litre batch is unacceptable (>10%). With a simple tube you will collect all the wort without having to tip a hot kettle.

cheers

Darren

(I know I should clean the kettle)

EDIT: Thirsty, Surprisingly the hops and break material pretty well stay put around the tube. I use the remaining wort in my lines (the blow-method) for starter wort.

 

[Jakechan]

Thanks Darren. That makes sense to me now.

I actually made my pickup tube this arvo anyway, although mine is a lot closer to the side. See any problems with this?






Cheers,
Jake

 

[Darren]

You might get some clogging in the elbow but otherwise fine.

If you use flowers, MAKE SURE you put a scrubbie over the end of the tube.

cheers

Darren

 

[Jakechan]

You might get some clogging in the elbow but otherwise fine.

If you use flowers, MAKE SURE you put a scrubbie over the end of the tube.

cheers

Darren

Will do! Love that idea BTW, a simple and cheap solution.
Cheers,
Jake

 

[Darren]

Will do! Love that idea BTW, a simple and cheap solution.
Cheers,
Jake

Forgot to mention, NO scrubbie with pellets.

cheers

Darren

 

[Thirsty Boy]

EDIT: Thirsty, Surprisingly the hops and break material pretty well stay put around the tube. I use the remaining wort in my lines (the blow-method) for starter wort.

Dammit... it really is just me then. I have my pick-up tube to the side, just below where the keg changes from the side to the curved bottom, and it leaves 2.3L behind. If I even think about moving it lower .. it sucks break material and hops no matter how carefully I try to drain or how thoroughly I whirpool.

I hate leaving behind that 2.3L (even though I recycle it for starter wort) but in every combination I have tried of screens and/or pick-ups, I either get it completely clogged, or much more break makes it through than I am happy with.

Jake, yours is gonna be fine, all you have to do is adjust it up and down till you are typically getting only clean wort through and leaving the goo behind. If the trub separation gods smile on you like they smile on Darren... that'll be pretty much on the bottom. If they hate you like they hate me... a cm or two up from there.

Your design is rock solid, except for teh right angle corner, which as darren says, might get a bit cloggy.

Nice looking kettle set up actually.

TB

 

[rude]

Hey thirsty sorry for wasting youre time but I inverted my keg & use a pickup tube leaving behind about a litre.
Heaps of trub & break going into the cube (no chill) I then rack about 2 to 3 days into fermentation (ale) leaving the trub behind.
What is the disadvantage of puting the trub into youre fermenter?
Have only done a couple of AGs mate so I was just wondering about this as I was going to use some termimesh around my pickup tube next time to see the difference in maybe taste & clarity.

 

[Darren]

Hey Rude,
Termimesh will clog instantly. Nothing wrong with a little break material in the cube either.

Thirsty, Next time I make a brew I will photo it. Sucks break/hop from about a cm around the end of the tube and thats it. Leaves only hop/break sludge in the kettle. I do pump to my fermenter so air does not get much of a chance to get in the tube to stop flow.

cheers

Darren

 

[Kai]

My pickup usually has a hop screen around it, but when I don't use it then the pickup will only suck around half an inch diameter of break around the tube. The rest settles on the bottom. Of course, I think having a flat-bottomed kettle as opposed to a keg makes a difference.

When I do use the hop screen, the break that doesn't settle on the bottom collects with the hops on the outside of the screen.

 

[schooey]

Couple of things....

Jake, is that copper elbow on your pick up only centre punched to stay put? You will find if it doesn't have an airtight seal the suction will break once the liquid gets below it and you will lose your syphon effect and only be able to drain wort down to the height of the elbow

I use a termimesh strainer without any blockage issues, works a treat. Every time I have tried a bare end tube I end up with the wort moving the trub toward the tube and the tube blocking.

I bought a BB hopscreen and wasn't so happy with it. Couldn't drain any less than the last 3- 3.5L It also clogged a little that the flow got down to almost just a trickle... But that's just my experience. plenty of others seem to use them with success

 

[Jakechan]

Jake, yours is gonna be fine, all you have to do is adjust it up and down till you are typically getting only clean wort through and leaving the goo behind. If the trub separation gods smile on you like they smile on Darren... that'll be pretty much on the bottom. If they hate you like they hate me... a cm or two up from there.

Your design is rock solid, except for teh right angle corner, which as darren says, might get a bit cloggy.

Nice looking kettle set up actually.

TB

Thanks TB. I think I will have to experiment a little with the positioning, and yeah, Im not so happy with the bend.

Couple of things....

Jake, is that copper elbow on your pick up only centre punched to stay put? You will find if it doesn't have an airtight seal the suction will break once the liquid gets below it and you will lose your syphon effect and only be able to drain wort down to the height of the elbow

Doh! I didnt think of that! I might change the pipe to the larger size copper and do away with the joiners - which as you guessed are just pin punched together at present.

Cheers,
Jake

 

[Thirsty Boy]

nice pick-up schooey.

rude - getting break material into your fermenter is something I want to avoid. I am in the camp of people who thinks that there is a danger of it contributing off flavours and making the beer prone to developing early aged character.

BUT - the phrase "in the camp of people" should warn you, others don't agree. There are a lot of people who are perfectly OK with chucking the lot into their fermentor, some who only bother with separating trub when its a lager or delicate beer they are brewing, people who use hop socks so avoid the hops bit altogether and dont care about the break, and pretty much every variation in between.

my take on it is that while there are plenty of people who say that a bit of break material doesn't hurt - there are virtually no people saying that the lack of break material does hurt (I mean hot break for picky buggers) - so in my book the surest route to the best beer, is to get rid of it as soon as possible, and that's by leaving it in the kettle. If your beers are good.... why change? If you think they have some faults - that is one place you could look for them.

Termimesh - I found it worse than useless. It isn't fine enough to stop break material by itself and while it will build up a layer of pellet hops around it that will filter out the break material, then the flow rate slows to a trickle or stops. Of course if you are using flowers they behave differently and the mesh would be OK. I am putting words in schooeys mouth when I say that it seems that he is more or less using it as a diverter screen, to stop there being a strong current stream to pull apart his break pile, and that if he was using it as a direct "filter" and it was having to deal with volumes of hop/break, it would clog. Maybe worth a try as schooey is obviously making it work - but don't fall over n surprise if it doesn't work for you.

On the bright side for me at least - I am moving to a flat bottomed kettle soon (just needs holes drilled and fittings installed) so perhaps I will be able to get an effect similar to Darren and Kai. I am thinking about installing a whirlpool ring in there to help out.

 

[Effect]

So I do another brew yesterday.

Plan for 24 litres - trying to get 20 litres into the fermenter.

I ended up with about 23 litres in the kettle after a 90 minute boil. So I then chill through my counterflow chiller - once it stops I read ONLY 15 litres in the fermenter. ????

As I was chilling I took DrSmurto's advice and tipped my keggle so that the hopscreen was always submersed in wort. Really strange that I only got 15 litres though...Even more strange is that the wort stopped coming out of the chiller even when it was submersed in wort (I filled the keggle through the tap in case there was any air bubbles - had read something about that in a different thread).

I pour the remaining wort through a sieve with paper towel - add it do the fermenter and now have 20 litres. So where did this 3 litres dissapear to? I have a dip stick for my keggle and that is fairly accurate (+ or - 500 ml I would say). However I haven't checked to see if the volume reading on the coopers fermenter is correct (there could actually be 23 litres of wort in the fermenter). That could put that to rest...


BUT, there is a 5 litre (possibly - not too sure about the volume on the fermenter still) deadspace in my keggle - it stopped picking up even when it was submersed in wort.

1) Could the tap be too high? But that should only be affected when it is trying to pick up wort when air gets in the line - i.e. when the siphon breaks.

2) Maybe it wasn't 5 litres - but it was sure a lot...filled up a big salad bowl (was the biggest container I could find that wasn't in use). What can I do to limit the amount of wort lost to the deadspace???

Cheers
Phil

PS: I'll chuck some pics up if you guys think they would help!

 

[Goofinder]

I would expect that you would lose about 1L to shrinkage (approx 4% ish) as it goes through the chiller. Apparently the markings on the Coopers fermenters are about 1L out (and mine seemed to be about that the other day when 13L in my fermenter after sparging looked like 14L in my kettle. So, there's potentially 2L of loss.

The height of the tap shouldn't be an issue as long as where you're draining to is below the pickup and there is an airtight seal between the tap and your pickup tube.

You may need to up your final volume a tad to get 20L into the fermenter. I usually have 26.5L (hot) post boil and end up with 22L (cold) into the fermenter after a no-chill overnight in the cube. I use an urn with beerbelly hopscreen, so I'm not too familiar with the size/shape/deadspace in a keggle though.