How to keep Trub out of the fermenter

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nick sekerak

nick sekerak

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I alway read and see people not using hop bags for boiling/whirlpool pellet hop additions. I hear you get better hop utilization without using hop bags. I have never tried adding the pellets directly to my wort of my electric kettle. what’s the best practice to keep the Trub out of your fermenter. I have a whirlpool arm from brewhardware.com and a solar water pump, The small tan one some people on here use. How or what methods work best. I want to know how you do it correctly so I don’t mess up my batch.
 
I don't use hop bags, throwing pellet hops or leaf hops right in the boil, and I do not limit what goes in fermenter, pouring it all in. 5G batches, no NEIP styles though, so my total hop usage is typically < 4oz.
 
I stopped using hop bags and hop filters a while ago because I noticed I wasn't getting nearly enough hop flavor. It really does make a difference to throw them in loose. I never worried about getting trub into the fermenter though. Studies have shown that some degree of trub is almost necessary for yeast nutrition
 
What @don_bran321 said. I've never really worried too much about it. Everything settles out in the fermenter and your beautiful beer is racked off or drained off leaving the garbage behind.
 
Time. Let the gunk settle before transferring to fermentation. I usually let it settle for 90-120 minutes. But since you're on a solar pump you also need to make sure that the hops added without a bag doesn't clog the tiny pump.
 
Don't fear the trub. For quick beers (grain to glass in 3 weeks kegging) I just put all of the trub in. It is good for the yeast, it settles and starts to compact very quickly and gets 'sealed in' by spent yeast cells within a few days anyway.
 
+1^ If you use an immersion chiller, get the wort down to desired temp, pull chiller, carefully, replace lid, whirlpool another 10 minutes. Turn off pump. Let sit for at least 20 minutes. Transfer. And don't worry too much about trub. It's not as bad as we had been lead to believe.
 
Imo trub in fermenter = more muddy beer. I hate trub, also because i harvest yeast.

If you let gunk sit in water for a while, decant it, drink it, you can still taste it. The difference with beer is that your have more malt/hops etc to mask it, but it's still there.
 
Smellyglove said:
Imo trub in fermenter = more muddy beer. I hate trub, also because i harvest yeast.

If you let gunk sit in water for a while, decant it, drink it, you can still taste it.
Click to expand...

This is been proven false quite a few times over (that the result is murkier beer or something that comes through in the final product). It does depend on how long you leave it on the trub. When Brulosohy experimented with it, the beer with extra trub was actually brighter (cleared more).

I can see that it makes yeast harvest more difficult - if I harvested I'd probably be more picky about trub.

"If you let gunk sit in water for a while, decant it, drink it, you can still taste it." True. But we aren't letting water sit on it and tasting it, we're letting beer sit on it. There's a difference in PH, solubility, the affect on Yeast health, and possibly clarification. That's like saying that we shouldn't use Yeast, because if you dissolve it in water and drink it -it tastes terrible.
 
TechFanMD said:
This is been proven false quite a few times over (that the result is murkier beer or something that comes through in the final product). It does depend on how long you leave it on the trub. When Brulosohy experimented with it, the beer with extra trub was actually brighter (cleared more).

I can see that it makes yeast harvest more difficult - if I harvested I'd probably be more picky about trub.

"If you let gunk sit in water for a while, decant it, drink it, you can still taste it." True. But we aren't letting water sit on it and tasting it, we're letting beer sit on it. There's a difference in PH, solubility, the affect on Yeast health, and possibly clarification. That's like saying that we shouldn't use Yeast, because if you dissolve it in water and drink it -it tastes terrible.
Click to expand...

I stopped reading when I saw you mentioned Brulosophy. I know it clears better, but the taste..

Anyhow that's just my opinion and how I do things. If you get different results that's fine. Nothing is written in stone.
 
Smellyglove said:
I stopped reading when I saw you mentioned Brulosophy. I know it clears better, but the taste..

Anyhow that's just my opinion and how I do things. If you get different results that's fine. Nothing is written in stone.
Click to expand...
You are right - nothing is written in stone :) Brulosophy isn't perfect but they get a lot more hate than they deserve. It is still interesting and useful even if some methods may be flawed. Their statistics are mostly meaningless....but it is generally clear that a lot of stuff that has been gospel in homebrewing for decades really doesn't matter (at least at the homebrew scale).

Personally - I started keeping more trub in when I noted banana flavors in any lighter beer when I worked extra hard to only transfer clear wort and leave trub behind. I am especially sensitive to banana flavors in beer (and not in a way that I like). Ever since I ignored getting trub in, it's been fine. Any beer I've tasted at a brew club that had the banana flavor and I asked about trub.....they were keeping as much out as possible.

Check out the trub section of this page http://scottjanish.com/esters-and-fusel-alcohols/
 
TechFanMD said:
You are right - nothing is written in stone :) Brulosophy isn't perfect but they get a lot more hate than they deserve. It is still interesting and useful even if some methods may be flawed. Their statistics are mostly meaningless....but it is generally clear that a lot of stuff that has been gospel in homebrewing for decades really doesn't matter (at least at the homebrew scale).

Personally - I started keeping more trub in when I noted banana flavors in any lighter beer when I worked extra hard to only transfer clear wort and leave trub behind. I am especially sensitive to banana flavors in beer (and not in a way that I like). Ever since I ignored getting trub in, it's been fine. Any beer I've tasted at a brew club that had the banana flavor and I asked about trub.....they were keeping as much out as possible.

Check out the trub section of this page http://scottjanish.com/esters-and-fusel-alcohols/
Click to expand...

I for myself don't believe in gospels and experiment for myself, not just once, but batch after batch.

My point is, if you leave something in a liquid, it will impart a flavor. Even if it's a very small contribution. Now I'm being a bit unreasonable, but it's to prove my point. If you add blueberries to a beer, it will taste like blueberries. Trub just have a different taste than blueberries, but who wants the taste of old grains and hops in the beer?

Edit: I'm an isoamyl acetate addict, since I love a good hefe. I can pick that up without problems where others say they cant smell or taste it. But for those beers from my own brewery which are supposed to be without "banana" I don't detect it at all.
 
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Smellyglove said:
I for myself don't believe in gospels and experiment for myself, not just once, but batch after batch.

My point is, if you leave something in a liquid, it will impart a flavor. Even if it's a very small contribution. Now I'm being a bit unreasonable, but it's to prove my point. If you add blueberries to a beer, it will taste like blueberries. Trub just have a different taste than blueberries, but who wants the taste of old grains and hops in the beer?
Click to expand...
I personally don't think the trub imparts a flavor was my point. Plain water is 'hungrier' to have soluables dissolve in it.....beer is not. Brew on my friend.
 
TechFanMD said:
I personally don't think the trub imparts a flavor was my point. Plain water is 'hungrier' to have soluables dissolve in it.....beer is not. Brew on my friend.
Click to expand...

All good. I guess it's up to the readers of the thread to make up their own opinion after trying out both.
 
don_bran321 said:
I stopped using hop bags and hop filters a while ago because I noticed I wasn't getting nearly enough hop flavor. It really does make a difference to throw them in loose. I never worried about getting trub into the fermenter though. Studies have shown that some degree of trub is almost necessary for yeast nutrition
Click to expand...

Those studies referred to cold break material only. Hot break material is something completely different and has always been shown to be only detrimental to beer. Not counting Brulosophy experiments which are only good if you want to have a laugh...
 
Most homebrew setups are not great for either hot side OR cold side oxygen.

Lipids in trub accelerate staling.

Much like the old gospel that HSA was a myth, you don't notice it until you genuinely reduce the source.

Beers with significant trub show a lot more staling faster than beers without.

But if your cold side practices aren't top notch, you're gonna oxidize it anyway and not be able to tell.

And before anyone says "I don't taste wet cardboard", oxidation expresses in many forms beyond trans-2-nonenal (paper/cardboard), and is typically a lot more subtle (same goes for yeast autolysis from the "i leave everything for 4 weeks" camp).
 
Vale71 said:
Those studies referred to cold break material only. Hot break material is something completely different and has always been shown to be only detrimental to beer. Not counting Brulosophy experiments which are only good if you want to have a laugh...
Click to expand...

Very few homebrewers have the ability to keep hot break out of their fermenters. Assuming that most can't whirlpool effectively. Even straining, a good amount is going into the fermenter. The mesh on a strainer is not that fine. And if it was it would clog almost immediately.

I bag my hops. (except for the most recent) For my fermentations, some only a little went in and others more went in. I never detected anything better from one or the other. My latest one had all the hops directly in. Including 3 ounces if dry hops. I will see if I thing the hop presence has increased. I did lose almost 1/2 gallon to the dry hops.
 
I leave all the crud in it. Keeps others from drinking it. Except one of my coworkers. He doesnt care about crud either.
 
Ive always had a little trub in my brews but most of the time i throw mine in a secondary while still fermenting just after vigorous has ended. Clears out any trub and usually gives me enough yeast to repitch and clears my beers up nicely. When I think I have too much trub going into the fermenter I use the same strainer above but I got mine from the dollar store for, you guessed it, a dollar.
 
nick sekerak said:
I alway read and see people not using hop bags for boiling/whirlpool pellet hop additions. I hear you get better hop utilization without using hop bags. I have never tried adding the pellets directly to my wort of my electric kettle. what’s the best practice to keep the Trub out of your fermenter. I have a whirlpool arm from brewhardware.com and a solar water pump, The small tan one some people on here use. How or what methods work best. I want to know how you do it correctly so I don’t mess up my batch.
Click to expand...
no hop bag here...and I use pellets. I toss a whirlfloc tablet in at 10 minutes left to boil. I found that 15 minutes was too long and the effects were not what I needed. I also use a copper coil immersion chiller and with garden hose /ground water temps I can get my boil down to 80*F in about 20-30 minutes .Once it gets to around 80*F I'll give it a good swirl to whirlpool it and let it settle as it continues to cool down. By the time it gets to 70*F the bulk of my equipment cleaned and put away ,I'm ready to transfer to the carboy and its all settled at the bottom of the kettle. Fairly clear wort. I dont have enough exposed threads to attach a dip tube so when it gets toward the bottom of the kettle I tip it carefully so as not to disturb the settled trub. A little bit still seems to find its way in but its not a huge deal. It'll settle out during fermentation. Patience of the chilling process and careful transfer.
 
Interesting that everyone automatically seems to assume one is trying to avoid hop matter, adjuncts, or trub in the fermenter for reasons of taste or beer clarity. I strain not for those reasons at all. Straining for me is most important when doing my Belgian Wit's since I want to keep the orange peel and coriander out of the fermenter. Why? Well I don't want the orange peel to clog the spigot, had it happen and what a major PITA. I also don't want little bits of coriander in the beer when I pull a pint. And being those adjuncts are buoyant whirlpooling doesn't help at all. The hops I do also strain but primarily so I have a more accurate fermenter fill reading. Some sources report 1oz of hops absorbing 12oz of wort on average. Use just 3oz and that could be a quart of wort. If I'm trying to get 5.25 gallons into the fermenter and all the hops go in I definitely did not hit the desired volume. It's just a piece of mind thing. And yes I know it's not always 12oz but I still like knowing the hop matter isn't throwing off my volume readings which get even more pertinent with something like an IPA.

Depending on the fermenter one has and its spigot placement hops can also still clog a spigot, though it is very rare.


Rev.
 
I should add to my post above: I run mine through coarse, medium and fine mesh in order to strain the biggest share out of it and also to aerate the wort; pretty much the same as this:

https://eckraus.com/snap-in-screen-set/

Only the smallest particles make it through, and what's left behind is only enough to make the wort cloudy, but it always settles down to a very clear beer, especially after cold-crashing.
 
Alright, in no way am I hijacking this thread (not intentionally anyway) but why all the hate towards Brulosophy? I don't get it... What is it that they're doing wrong in your opinions?

EDIT: I'm not asking to start arguments, I'm just curious. I actually enjoy reading some of their stuff, maybe that's my noob side haha.
 
Rob2010SS said:
Alright, in no way am I hijacking this thread (not intentionally anyway) but why all the hate towards Brulosophy? I don't get it... What is it that they're doing wrong in your opinions?

EDIT: I'm not asking to start arguments, I'm just curious. I actually enjoy reading some of their stuff, maybe that's my noob side haha.
Click to expand...
It's two-fold.

1) the sensory method they use, while sciencey, is poorly controlled. Small, poorly controlled sample groupings. It makes any interpretation of results sketchy.

2) bigger deal are all the homebrewers (and there are MANY of them) who then rationalize that to justify bad habits because they then think it doesn't matter.

"I do or don't do xyz because Brulosophy said..." even when all modern brewing science says otherwise.

Especially when bad habits are combined.
 
Ok, yeah I can see that, that makes sense. I guess that's maybe where my opinion differs. I don't take what they say as gospel, I just read it and maybe try things occasionally to see for myself.

TBH, I never thought about the sensory method they use either, but you have a point. Random people trying to evaluate beers and they could have years of experience or zero experience.

Thanks for the answer @Qhrumphf . Sorry for hijacking the thread briefly. Carry on with the original topic!
 
You want to keep trub out of the fermenter?

Use Brewtan B in the mash, use a BIAB bag as a filter (don’t pull bag, just drain into kettle), in general put clear beer into the kettle, Whirlpool well, use whirlfloc, let break settle while chilling (up to 30-60 minutes after chilled), and drain clear beer into fermenter.
 
Qhrumphf said:
It's two-fold.

1) the sensory method they use, while sciencey, is poorly controlled. Small, poorly controlled sample groupings. It makes any interpretation of results sketchy.

2) bigger deal are all the homebrewers (and there are MANY of them) who then rationalize that to justify bad habits because they then think it doesn't matter.

"I do or don't do xyz because Brulosophy said..." even when all modern brewing science says otherwise.

Especially when bad habits are combined.
Click to expand...
Not everything they do even involves bad habits or shortcuts. And just because an experiment isn’t scientifically sound doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable info.

I hear just as many brewers dismiss Brulosophy because it disagrees with how they do something- even if they’re just doing it because a book they read in 1985 said to. I have also met the “I do it this way and make great beer” guys - and in fact they don’t make great beer, it is just Ok and an open mind to different ideas than what they’ve always done could make it better.
 
TechFanMD said:
Not everything they do even involves bad habits or shortcuts. And just because an experiment isn’t scientifically sound doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable info.

I hear just as many brewers dismiss Brulosophy because it disagrees with how they do something- even if they’re just doing it because a book they read in 1985 said to. I have also met the “I do it this way and make great beer” guys - and in fact they don’t make great beer, it is just Ok and an open mind to different ideas than what they’ve always done could make it better.
Click to expand...

Short and shoddy?

What self respecting person in any hobby would openly promote something like that?

It’s their whole ethos distilled into a three word mission statement.
 
RPIScotty said:
Short and shoddy?

What self respecting person in any hobby would openly promote something like that?

It’s their whole ethos distilled into a three word mission statement.
Click to expand...

Short and shoddy is only one of the things they do....and considering many people leave the hobby because they don’t have time to dedicate 4-6hrs for a brew day I applaud them for showing methods that can cut back on some of the time. Many of the methods they use are well regarded on HBT as well (shorter mashes, shorter boil times).

But again- that’s only one piece of what they do (though I don’t like the name they use for it)

A front page article on HBT is about how to brew in an hour or less.....and magazines have been increasingly having articles surrounding this idea.
 
TechFanMD said:
Short and shoddy is only one of the things they do....and considering many people leave the hobby because they don’t have time to dedicate 4-6hrs for a brew day I applaud them for showing methods that can cut back on some of the time. Many of the methods they use are well regarded on HBT as well (shorter mashes, shorter boil times).

But again- that’s only one piece of what they do (though I don’t like the name they use for it)

A front page article on HBT is about how to brew in an hour or less.....and magazines have been increasingly having articles surrounding this idea.
Click to expand...

I’m of the opinion that if you don’t have the time to devote to making exceptional beer than you shouldn’t.

When I can’t brew I buy. I certainly don’t look for shortcuts to scratch an itch better served by purchasing beer of exceedingly exceptional quality with regards to what I can brew myself.

Brulosophy and anyone following what they are doing are bass-ackwards. They are often touted as being some sort of role models for brewers when all they are doing pimping themselves out and peddling absolute rubbish to people who don’t know any better.

Can you tell I’m biased? :yes:
 
I mean, there's something to be said to calm the newbie "oh no I did XYZ is my beer ruined?"

But small things add up, and I too am in the camp of "if you're not gonna make the best you can with the gear at your disposal then don't bother".
 
RPIScotty said:
I’m of the opinion that if you don’t have the time to devote to making exceptional beer than you shouldn’t.

When I can’t brew I buy. I certainly don’t look for shortcuts to scratch an itch better served by purchasing beer of exceedingly exceptional quality with regards to what I can brew myself.

Brulosophy and anyone following what they are doing are bass-ackwards. They are often touted as being some sort of role models for brewers when all they are doing pimping themselves out and peddling absolute rubbish to people who don’t know any better.

Can you tell I’m biased? :yes:
Click to expand...


Wow. That is a very elitist attitude. You can brew anyway you want....and so can anyone else. To say that other people shouldn’t do it if they don’t have time to get really really good at it and make exceptional beer is rude and diminishes the idea of it being a hobby to be enjoyed.

Imagine telling kids not to play a sport if they aren’t going to be expert at it, or going to college unless they can be top in their field. I should quit golf because I’ll never break par.

I make good beer, but I look for ways to cut the time it takes because I’m also a good father, a good citizen involved in the community, and have a job. I’ll never be as good at brewing as you - because apparently time is the secret ingredient to enjoying the hobby and to making beer that’s better than you buy.

You know better than all of the guys at Brulosphy combined. It is obvious. Tell us more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
RPIScotty said:
You want to keep trub out of the fermenter?

Use Brewtan B in the mash, use a BIAB bag as a filter (don’t pull bag, just drain into kettle), in general put clear beer into the kettle, Whirlpool well, use whirlfloc, let break settle while chilling (up to 30-60 minutes after chilled), and drain clear beer into fermenter.
Click to expand...
 

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