How much wort remains in your kettle after draining?

[TimL]

I'm currently playing around with my kettle pickup tube, trying to minimize losses in the kettle (wort that is left behind after draining the kettle from the bulkhead).

I have a 10 gal flat bottom pot, and was using a hop stopper with the stainless steel centre pickup tube. I thought I was leaving too much wort behind, so I bought some soft 1/2" OD copper, and have tried a few side pickup tube variations. So far, I'm leaving about 2 L behind in the kettle when draining. Is this as good as it gets? Anyone else measure theirs? Any tips/tricks?

(This of course assumes you have a pickup tube config of some sort)


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[Black Island Brewer]

I use a keggle with a rounded bottom and a side drain. I use an elbow with a nipple to get closer to the bottom of the edge of the keggle. With the elbow, I leave a half-gallon behind of hops and hot & cold break material. It's worked fine for low-hop beers, but with higher hopping rates, I pick up more trub than I'd like, so I'm planning on removing the nipple for highly hopped beers so that I leave more break material behind - a gallon all together. I just adjust the recipe to account for the loss, since it costs just a few cents more.

 

[max384]

I use a racking cane to transfer my cooled wort from the kettle to the fermenter. I used to be really careful about not picking up any of the sediment, and I ended up leaving quite a bit behind because of it... Then I decided to just say F it and not worry too much about it, and I've noticed no difference in taste and no appreciable increase in trub in the primary. Besides, when I rack it either into a secondary or directly to the keg, I still leave all the trub behind anyhow.

 

[PowPow]

None.
I only brew 5 gallon batches so I simply pick the boil kettle up and dump it all in the fermenter (through a paint strainer bag).

The only loss is the amount that is absorbed by the trub and hops in the strainer. And that depends on the amount and type of hops used in the boil.

I used to do a whirlpool and gently siphon the wort out of the boil kettle, but the result was the same as with my current technique. The only difference is that now I get half a gallon more into the fermenter. And it's a lot quicker.

 

[farmskis]

None.
I only brew 5 gallon batches so I simply pick the boil kettle up and dump it all in the fermenter (through a paint strainer bag).

The only loss is the amount that is absorbed by the trub and hops in the strainer. And that depends on the amount and type of hops used in the boil.

I used to do a whirlpool and gently siphon the wort out of the boil kettle, but the result was the same as with my current technique. The only difference is that now I get half a gallon more into the fermenter. And it's a lot quicker.

And it is has a good volume of air mixed in for the yeast.