Trub Question

[Charles Stanley-Grey]

Afternoon all,

Yes it is a trub or no trub thread, but I am not intending to have the whole debate again, I promise I have read the other threads!

I have just completed my third BIAB brew session and overall am very pleased with how the day went. On my previous two brews I did not really see what the fuss was about in relation to trub. There was not much and it quickly went away. On this occasion I got quite a significant amount of trub, to the point about 4L of my FV is looking truby (Yes I know it will settle). I also did remember to add 15g of Irish Moss in the last 15 minutes of the boil this time, maybe this could have assist the development of a more noticeable amount of trub?

Now, lets not ask for detail on the should I remove trub, is it good or bad for yeast health, but brulosophy did a taste taste and said it helped clarity, but some commercial brewers include trub..... Bla bla....

Lets skip to, I want my beer to taste good and I want as much of it as possible. Now there may be a balanced here but at the minute every brew I have done has lost an amount of my precious beer to the yeast cake and trub layer and taste is going to depending highly on your preferences.

1) Poll attached for statistical answer, but would you remove trub before ferment?

2) Is it possible to remove the trub post ferment? If so what methods would everyone recommend? I have a small filter but it just gets clogged in seconds and stops and I worry I will aerate the finished wert in doing so.

 

[Cowman]

Your best bet to reduce the trub will be to cold crash, add some gelatin if you wish to speed up the yeast flocculation and to leave some beer behind so your not racking the trub as well. With all grain brewing you will always lose some beer to trub and kettle loss ect. If you want more in the bottle you'll have to plan around these losses

 

[HarryFlatters]

I try to transfer as little cold break from the boiler to the fermenter, then as little trub from fermenter to keg / bottling bucket.

Edit - As cowman says, a cold crash after primary is finished then racking from on top normally clears things up nicely.

 

[strange-steve]

When using a counterflow chiller, like you get with the GF, all of the cold break ends up in the FV. It doesn't really concern me. As long as you're aware of it you can adjust your recipe/water volumes to account for it. A careful syphon from FV to bottling bucket means you can leave most of it behind before bottling.

 

[terrym]

I have a small filter but it just gets clogged in seconds and stops and I worry I will aerate the finished wert in doing so.

You need to aerate the wort before pitching anyway since oxygen is required in the aerobic initial part of the fermentation process to encourage the yeast to multiply for the second anaerobic part of the fermentation where any oxygen ingress is to be discouraged.

 

[The Baron]

No trub for me I leave it behind in the boiler, I have found that if you transfer to the FV it can leave a thick layer at the bottom sometimes and it gets disturbed when putting in the syphon tube/stick if it is over 1/2 an inch so I do leave the cold break behind

 

[Hanglow]

15g of Irish moss? is that a typo, because it's 10x what you need

 

[Drunkula]

I noticed a huge reduction in trub when I started to vorlauf doing brew in a bag. I've put a spatter guard for a frying pan in the bottom of a fermenter balancing on the plastic tap back nut so the bag is suspended off the bottom. Drain off and pour it back in the top, and don't do it just a little bit. About half the time I think I can't be arsed with this and pour the whole boil into the fermenter. You can strain out loads of goop if you pour through a colander with another brew bag in it.

 

[foxy]

Beer is the cheapest mass produced commodity selling for a high price. I don't like leaving beer behind but in home brewing its a fact of life. A few cents loss to the trub I won't loose any sleep over, if you really wanted to extract the remaining wort pour the trub and wort into a jug put it in the fridge to settle out. Gently pour off the wort, boil it, and add it to the fermenter, or save it for making starters.

 

[foxy]

Leaving the trub behind, I have tried lots of methods the most successful is using a helix.

If you are using dried yeast I wouldn't be overly concerned about a bit of oxygen getting into the wort, though most manufacturers recommend not to aerate, a small amount of oxygen will come out either because it is not happy with the density or will come out during fermentation with the co2.(Hopefully) If using liquid yeast then it won't matter.

 

[hichaechoc]

After the mash I clean the bag, boil it and fit it over the fermenter. I pour the wort through it to filter it and hang the bag up over the fermenter for a few minutes to drain and recover as much as possible.

 

[Charles Stanley-Grey]

Thanks for all the tips so far, have to admit though I think that helix looks bloody amazing! Going on my shopping list for sure.

 

[mathorp]

Leaving the trub behind, I have tried lots of methods the most successful is using a helix.

What is the helix? It looks like a cooling coil in the photos, but I can't figure out how that helps with trub.

 

[Charles Stanley-Grey]

I believe its actually a flexiable spring, I cannot seem to find a UK maker of a lauter helix, but can find springs and the connector, will probably make my own.

 

[marshbrewer]

I believe its actually a flexiable spring, I cannot seem to find a UK maker of a lauter helix, but can find springs and the connector, will probably make my own.

I couldn't understand why type of spring I needed to make one of these. Stainless, obviously, but other than that, what am I searching for?

 

[The Baron]

I think this is what people are looking at if you want to buy one
https://www.morebeer.com/products/helix-coil.html

 

[chrisb8]

I set a sanitised colander over my fv and line it with a piece of sanitised fine net curtain. I drain the entire wort from the tap on my kettle through this filter and it produces crystal clear wort in the fermentation vessel leaving the kettle trub and hops behind. This also aerates the wort in the process

 

[obscure]

I set a sanitised colander over my fv and line it with a piece of sanitised fine net curtain. I drain the entire wort from the tap on my kettle through this filter and it produces crystal clear wort in the fermentation vessel leaving the kettle trub and hops behind. This also aerates the wort in the process

I do something similar in my case though I run the boiling wort through a muslin cloth seal the fermentor and leave to cool. I do still get a fair amount of trub and typically I transfer 11L to the fermentor but expect to loose about 1-2L to trub. since I started filtering this is typically closer to 1L - 1.5L though. As I use either a 9.5l keg or a 5L and 4L mini keg this works great for my batch size. It works my beer still comes out clear enough and it makes for a nice easy brew day all for the cost of a little extra in grain and hops.

 

[foxy]

I couldn't understand why type of spring I needed to make one of these. Stainless, obviously, but other than that, what am I searching for?

They are extension springs, I got them from Alibaba the company makes them to order, ie diameter,
gauge thickness and material $3 US each 100 minimum order. Sold the remainder for $48 AU each which is still cheap, the German ones were just over $100 AU to buy here.