What to leave in the kettle

[Safa]

So speaking to my LHBS guy the other day, he advised me that excess trub in the fermenter will enhance a stale flavour in my beer. Specifically he said only to transfer crystal clear wort, and to leave anything that looked like egg drop soup.

Now I BIAB, dunk sparge, hit 75% efficiency or more consistently, use an IC to chill to pitching in under 10m, whirlpool and let settle for an hour. Below are some pics, one of crystal clear wort and one of egg drop soup.

My problem is that the egg drop soup (even after settling for an hour) is still about 1.5 or 2 gallons of my wort. Do I REALLY need to be throwing this away?




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[danhercules]

I have asked a local brewer about this. He says its protein that the yeast will eat. He told me keep the hops out of the fermenter but that stuff is ok .

 

[RM-MN]

Dump it all in. Let the yeast take anything they want from it, the rest will settle to the bottom of the fermenter and the yeast cake will cover it. People who have done it both ways can't taste any difference until they get to the last 10 bottles that would have otherwise been dumped out and those last 10 bottles taste like.....beer.

 

[JustLooking]

Here's an experiment. Take that egg drop soupy stuff and ferment it in a separate one gallon jug. Then compare. If it's not good, there's a good chance you don't want it in your beer even in a small quantity.

 

[Beer-lord]

I just use a very good strainer for my BIAB's and I dump every drop in. Never had a problem and I've done about 65 brews that way. If it's really funky, I just strain into one fermenter then strain that into a second fermenter. And, it helps aerate the wort for a quicker start.

 

[fearwig]

I put the last gallon in a jug and fridge it, then pour the clear wort on top into the fermenter a day or two later, before or during peak krausen. You'll get more than 2qts back and it's crystal clear. Works especially well to reduce trub from pellet hops. I don't know why this isn't standard practice, now that I've discovered it I'm in love.

If I use leaf, I strain and squeeze the leaf (within reason), but I bring it back to 150F before I jug it as described above (I'd rather pasteurize 2qts than somehow keep my squeezing sterile).

I understand you don't have to reduce the trub completely, but I tend to reuse yeast and this seems to help me keep the amount of break material in my cakes lower and more consistent. This amount of extra wort is also perfect for starters.

 

[Nuggethead]

Just dump it all in. The break material (egg drop soup) will have no effect on finished beer. I've seen so much break material that you would have to leave half your batch behind in some recipes. You can try to strain out pellet hop material, but even that won't effect your fermentation or flavor. Once your kettle has chilled to fermentation temps, most of the solids will go to the bottom and very little will drain to the fermenter anyway. If your
building your own recipes, you can adjust for a 5.5 or 6 gal. finished batch and drain off the clear leaving the junk behind.

 

[ThreeSheetsBrewing]

As mentioned above, dump it in. Over 5 years I've had no issues dumping all the trub in fermenter. I do use a hop spider to keep the hop junk down.

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[Safa]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the answers.

The reason he told me that was because I'd mentioned that I always brew 6 gallon batches to account for my consistent 1 gallon yeast cake/etc loss when primary is done. He shat himself that I was getting a whole gallon, and insisted I describe my brew process.


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