Lawrence Brewers Guild

How do you guys filter the trub when going from kettle to fermenter? On my first 2 brews, I didn't. I also have yet to use a hop bag during the boil, I've just been throwing them into the kettle. I have this 8" funnel with a filter (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products ... rodID=4680) that I attempted to use to filter the trub when I was pouring into the carboy on my 3rd brew I did last Sunday, but the filter was much too fine and just kept getting clogged, so I gave up and took the filter out. I'm worried that sitting on all that trub for a week in primary is doing bad things to my beer. What has been your experience? Do you dump it all into the primary? Do you use a hop bag and then filter multiple times before going into primary? Just wondering what techniques I should attempt to use for my next brew (Simcoe Select IPA: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products ... rodID=7736).

The way that I do it for my system since I do not have a drain valve on my kettle:

Lets say one hop addition at 60 minutes with a 60 minute boil. I don't use a bag and I use Type 90 hop pellets.

Bring the wort to a boil and let the hot break settle down at the initial boil. Toss in the recipe hops being careful that the pot does not boil over.

Boil gently with good exchange of steam bubbles from the bottom of the pot to the top with a good ripple of wort on the top.

At 20 minutes, put the chiller into the wort and wait for the boil to start again.

At 15 minutes, toss in a Whirlfloc tablet and continue to boil until 0 minutes. Cut the flame or heater and turn on the cooling water into the cooler. Lift the kettle lid and stir the wort every once in a while to get good exchange with the cooler. Once the wort is cool, remove the cooler.

Before replacing the kettle lid, stir the wort to get a nice whirl pool going and replace the lid.

Go off and drink a cup or two of coffee and try to recover from the exercise of the brew, maybe even take a nap ( a hour or three).

After the break has settled nicely into the kettle, siphon the clear wort into a clean and sanitized carboy starting above the break. You will leave most of the break in the bottle of the kettle. A little break will not kill your wort.

Pitch the correct amount of yeast at a cool temperature.

I primary at least 14 days and don't use a secondary.

Hopefully I have covered the way that I work.

Chris, thanks for your outline. I wonder if part of the reason my 2nd brew, which was supposed to be a really hoppy IPA, turned out so mediocre & bitter was because of it sitting on 1+ inches of trub from the boil for a week before I went to secondary.

Just trying to figure out the common pitfalls so I don't keep making mediocre beer.

I am not a believer in trub (break) causing off flavors in the finished beer. I have at times thrown the whole kettle into the carboy due to something coming up because of time and have not noticed a difference in the beer compared to another batch.

The main reason that I leave the trub behind is that I reuse the yeast and it means less time washing the yeast for another batch of beer.

I do not use a secondary fermentation for plain beer, even for my slow floc German Ale yeasts. The beer stays in the primary a minimum of 14 days or until I can see the beer start to clear. I want every single cell of yeast to do it's job of converting the maltose. With a secondary, you are leaving part of the yeast behind. Your beer will not spoil in the carboy so don't get in a hurry to move it off the yeast.

Bitter can be low sugar content..high CO2 levels..tannin from the grains and other things. Try brewing the same kit again. To really see things in action, try brewing a Blonde since there will not be a lot of hops to work with, the beer will have to be consumed rather quickly and since it is a simple grain bill, there is not much to hide behind.

Your next beer will be even better

The only reason I used a secondary on my 2nd brew was on the recommendation of a friend. I've been reading more and more people not using secondary and instead leaving it in primary longer like you have described. I have a Saison in the primary right now (since Sunday), and this time I am able to regulate the temp a lot better with my freshly built mini-fridge powered fermentation chamber. I may try just leaving this one in primary for 2 weeks instead of transferring to secondary.

I don't have any experience yet, though, so it's hard for me to judge what contributions my decisions make to the final product Maybe I need to invite you all over once it's ready so you can taste it and tell me what I did wrong

-Jason