Trub or No Trub you be the judge.

Trub in or Trub out.


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GFHomebrew

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Gday all yep I've finally worked out this poll feature! As in recent posts I've wanted to do a poll over trub that lovely brown gooey by product of the wort making process - mashing boiling and of course chilling that is all things brewing up until pitching/racking to primary fermentation.

I've recently (upon review of brulosophers brewing blog) decided to do away with any form of filtration of hop particulate matter or hot break prior to pitching into the fermentor. Malcolm recons that the yeast when it attenuators outta the wort in fermentation creates a protective barrier between the wort/beer and trub.

What do you think? What has been your personal Experience when dealing with the trub? Do you let it flow freely with the wort into the fermentor or do you try to prevent this nasty look stuff at all possible coasts from entering into your sanitatized primary fermentor?

I'd love to know your thoughts over the coming days Cheers to you all oh and happy Octoberfest Prost!
 
some of the cold break makes it in , keep hops out !
Depends on style and methods of course :confused:
i use only whilrfloc in last 10 mins of boil, whilrpool to settle denser particles in middle of pot before ice bath then pour off into primary where it stays until bottling day
 
Cheers mark ya gotta vote there mate (it's Australia remember) :p.I new where you stood on this one:)
 
When I was fermenting in the Big Bubbler - I filtered the wort through a fine mesh hop bag as it transferred in. Probably took out 90% of the particulate.

Just recently I upgraded to a stsinless conical by SS Brewing. A trub dump after 4 hrs from entering takes away all the hot & cold break. Another after 48 hrs does the rest.

Expensive for what it is however it does its job!
 
Now that is a nice piece of brewing equipment I'm picking up what your putting down with the conical what a cool feature. So do you just transfer everything into conical then about four hours later open valve at bottom and drain out trub? I've herd fermenting in stainless is better then plastic as well.
 
Exactly right...just flow it into the fermenter and wait a few hours. I do however take the little bit of effort and stir up a whirlpool just before the transfer with a sanitized paddle which is effective at keeping the really heavy stuff in the BK.

Stainless is far superior than plastic when it comes to sanitation. I started in 6 gal buckets and all it took was a few rigorous cleanings to scratch it up and gave it the ability to hold "bugs". Went to the Big Bubbler which was a harder plastic and therefore less likely to scratch. My only issue with the Bubbler was that I still had to rack to a secondary to get it off the primary cake.

I do collect my yeast and clean for a next batch so the conical was the obvious choice. Being that I brew about every 2 weeks, I unfortunately see the purchase of another in the near future...
 
I voted for the closest choice to what I do. I rack from the bottom of my fermenter. I let the siphon run for a few seconds before collecting the wort, mainly to clear the water filled tube I use to start my siphon. I fill my fermenters up to a certain point every time. That involves some trub making it into my fermenter. When I'm done, there's usually about 1/2 gallon left behind in my brew kettle.
 
I just let 'er rip and it all goes into primary. The difference in yield is not inconsequential. When I try to siphon only clear wort into the fermenter, there's quite a bit of good wort with break material swirling around it. If I leave that to settle out, there's still a good quart or more of clear stuff. If It goes into the fermenter, it gets stirred up by the action of fermentation, but as the yeast slows down, it drops right out. A good floc'ing yeast or a good cold crash really compacts it under the layer of dormant yeast so it's easier to rack off as beer than it was as wort.
I shoot for 5 1/2 post boil and transfer all of it into the primary, rack a over 5 gallons into secondary and right at 5 into the keg. If I leave break in the kettle, I only get about 5 gallons to start with and end up with 4 1/2 gallons of finished beer.
 
for years I went to great lengths to filter out everything before the fermenter, I even cold crashed before fermenting and only pulled clear wort off but it became too much work, always clogging, too much clean up. I finally started to add hops directly to the boil then the only thing I do is whirlpool after the boil and that pulls some hop and trub to the center then I added a shield attached to my elbow out to the ball valve and that helps some but I let about quart of hop and trub into the fermenter now and haven noticed any odd flavors so Ill be selling off my stainless steal filter lol
 
Here's the question. Should we be counting the trub in the wort volume? I can't quite wrap my head around this. How much wort is in the space occupied by the trub? It depends on how packed the trub is, of course. I typically end up with about 2" of sediment in my fermenter after fermentation when everything is settled. So does my wort start at the top of the trub? If I had 5 gallons of perfectly clear wort sitting on top of 2" of concrete at the bottom of the fermenter, my carboy would show more than 5 gallons in it, since it's graduated from the bottom of the carboy, not the top of the concrete. How would trub packed as dense as it's going to get compare to that?
 
I just brew for 1 gallon loss now for a 5 gallon batch so my carboy right from the brew pot shows 6 gallons that includes that trub hops and yeast," I know what your saying" but all of that is supposed to be figured out in your profile and the recipe is designed with that in mind, also different yeasts will compact that more than others so it can be deceiving to the eye
 
Absolutely account for it. I assume about 3/4 gallon. What's the worst that could happen.... you end up with a couple extra pints!
 
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You'd end up with a couple less pints assuming it's completely packed trub, like concrete. You'd measure 5 gallons if your beer is at the 5 gallon mark as measured from the bottom of the carboy, but you'd actually have less than 5 gallons. Your beer would start on top of the trub, not at the bottom of the carboy.
 
So JA it sounds like you get more packaged beer in the end by just dumping it all into primary and letting it sort it's self out opposed to trying to rack the clear wort off the break material in the kettle? The main thing is if the trub in,primary is leading to any off flavours in the beer. I've herd of people having grassy flavour from dry hops left in secondary/keg. But I'm not quite sure what and if trub imparts any off flavours in the Finnished product.

Brulosopher in this exbeerment see on his website www.brulosophy.com . not sure how to link it in here:confused:.
THE GREAT TRUB EXBEERIMENT | RESULTS ARE IN!
 
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So JA it sounds like you get more packaged beer in the end by just dumping it all into primary and letting it sort it's self out opposed to trying to rack the clear wort off the break material in the kettle? The main thing is if the trub in,primary is leading to any off flavours in the beer. I've herd of people having grassy flavour from dry hops left in secondary/keg. But I'm not quite sure what and if trub imparts any off flavours in the Finnished product...

That's the way I've been playing it...the break material and any hops that weren't bagged will take up a lot of space in the kettle but under the weight of a few generations of yeast bodies, it compacts into a nice solid layer and gets out of the way of racking clean beer. As regards off flavors, I'm not sure any break material (protiens that are coagulated out of the wort at boiling) will have much of an effect, unless you ended up aging "on the lees" for an extended period. Protein haze or chill haze might be something to think about, but flavors shouldn't be an issue.
Hops transferring to the fermenter could be an issue. I usually use a hop bag except if I'm using Magnum or another high alpha in 1/4 or 1/2 oz at the 60 minute addition - I just don't worry about that.
I just did an IPA and left all the hops loose in the boil and transferred all to the fermenter. I don't think grassy flavors will result from boiled or whirlpooled hops. Dry hops with no high-temp interaction could have a raw, vegetal, grassy flavor, but I think it depends on the hops. To me, nobel hops and varieties described as "earthy" like Saaz or Willamette have a dirt/grass/hay aftertaste in additions less than 10 minutes from FO - those I try to keep out of the fermenter by boiling in a bag.
 
Cheers there JA for your wealth of knowledge upon this Truby subject yep I just breathed another sigh of relief. For us Aussies who brew in buckets and where fermenting in carboys isn't a big thing one thing I've found is some of the trub creaps up level with fermentor tap. But when I'm doing my grav readings I usually clear the tap area so once racking to keg/secondary there ain't a big transfer of break material.

I'm slightly suprised at the poll results so far with 50% of Brewers who have voted so far going with the fast and loose method of transferring the wort freely no filtering straight to primary! With this many Brewers doing it I'm sure it would come up to keep that gunk back. Cheers
 
the best way to remove trub is simply chilling at 34f for at least 3 days 5 is better, all loose particles fall to the bottom then compacts and from there you just pull it off from the top, I have a freezer specifically designed for this and it has dramatically changed the taste of my beer. now the worst flavor I taste is the detergent my glass was washed in
 
Cheers there JA for your wealth of knowledge upon this Truby subject yep I just breathed another sigh of relief. For us Aussies who brew in buckets and where fermenting in carboys isn't a big thing one thing I've found is some of the trub creaps up level with fermentor tap. But when I'm doing my grav readings I usually clear the tap area so once racking to keg/secondary there ain't a big transfer of break material.

I'm slightly suprised at the poll results so far with 50% of Brewers who have voted so far going with the fast and loose method of transferring the wort freely no filtering straight to primary! With this many Brewers doing it I'm sure it would come up to keep that gunk back. Cheers
In the coopers FV the tap is way higher so trub levels are never an issue when racking off to bottling bucket , in fact I tilt it forward quite a long way to get the last clear beer off the cake .
With my other FV I ferment it tilted away from the tap with some polystyrene foam
 
In the coopers FV the tap is way higher so trub levels are never an issue when racking off to bottling bucket , in fact I tilt it forward quite a long way to get the last clear beer off the cake .
With my other FV I ferment it tilted away from the tap with some polystyrene foam

True there Mark I see them coopers fermentor don't have an air lock bit as such too hay? Yep the trub comes up to 3 liter mark of fermentor that's tap level on my 30 lt I brew bicket.

Ozark I ferment in a wine fridge its lowest temp that it will drop is the sparkling wine temp at 8c i wish I new how to over ride it's temp meter with my STC to chill to 0c. But will drop my brew I'm fermenting at the moment to 8c over a few days then rack to keg gelitin then condition.

You have to deal with what ya got I say;).

Am thinking of a chest Freezer though that's on my home brew list after conical, another intertap then chest freezer then prob new wife after she dumps me because of my attention to this hobby and not her ha ha
 

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