Whirlpooling - a quick question

[Mark_]

Hey folks,

Love the site and great feedback from everyone, thank you!

With that said, after my first brew day ever I have been going back over my process and figuring out what to do better.

I just now read up on whirlpooling so I obviously didn't do this on brewday, UGH! I pretty much took EVERYthing from the boil and put it in the fermenter. Is that going to be a problem? What will change, taste-wise, between this and whirlpooling to remove a lot of trub?

Right now I have about 2 inches of sediment on the bottom of my 3 gallon carboy, the fermenting wort is very cloudy but getting better every day and I am on day three of fermentation. The Krausen, which was impressive, disappeared after day two. There is no obvious activity from the airlock and I am using Safale S-04 which from what I read has a 24-48 hour typical fermentation time. I plan on leaving it in the carboy for 3 weeks at this point.

So really just a whirlpooling question...

What will be different/bad/horrible because I did not whirlpool? Taste? Nothing?

Thanks folks!

 

[inhousebrew]

What will be different/bad/horrible because I did not whirlpool? Taste? Nothing?

Nothing. I used to dump everything into the fermenter and come out with good beer. The only thing is that you have all that sediment so racking can be tricky. Make sure to not pull a bunch of crap when moving the beer. You might need to hold your racking cane above it all but you'll be good.

So for next time you could try a whirlpool. I do so with a large, sanitized metal spoon and then let it settle for a while. I drain mine though a ball valve, not sure how well it would work if you're pouring your wort from the kettle.

 

[Hammy71]

No worries. Many of us just dump everything into the fermenter. It won't hurt a thing.

 

[Mark_]

Thanks guys, that helps!

 

[billl]

There are 2 schools of thought

1) If you want clear beer, keep the junk out of every phase of the process.
2) It doesn't matter at all, dump it in.

Both seem to work out about the same in the end. Personally, I strain the wort through a paint straining bag to get all the big junk out and don't worry about the small stuff.

 

[BigFloyd]

I whirlpool after removing the wort chiller and then I wait 15 minutes (with lid on the kettle) before slowly opening the ball valve to drain into the bucket. I also use Whirlfloc @ 10 minutes which really helps. I've started to become convinced that the Whirlfloc and the 15 minute wait (that lets junk settle) is more important than the whirlpooling.

Another thing that will help (if you can do it) is, once fermentation is complete, to cold crash to 35-36* for 3-5 days prior to bottling/kegging. That serves to clear the beer and compact the trub at the bottom. Then be very careful when moving the fermenter so as to not slosh the beer around and rack carefully.

 

[ChiechiBrouw]

There are 2 schools of thought

1) If you want clear beer, keep the junk out of every phase of the process.
2) It doesn't matter at all, dump it in.

Both seem to work out about the same in the end. Personally, I strain the wort through a paint straining bag to get all the big junk out and don't worry about the small stuff.

I'm in category 2. After years of trying to separate all the break material from the wort going into the primary, I now just send everything through the plate chiller and my beers are clearer than ever. Irish moss, however, makes a huge difference.