How do you harvest your clearest wort?

[Spauld]

I know that some brewers don’t worry too much about collecting clear wort to the fermenter, simply allowing trub to flow freely. I am of the mind that if professional brewers are removing trub, then I should too. After losing my source for whole-leaf hops last year, I was forced to shift to pelletized hops. I was surprised by how difficult is has been to get clear wort from the brew kettle as a result. But the pellet hops aren’t the issue here (I use a hop basket). Rather it’s the trub (hot break material if I’m using my counter-flow or both hot and cold break if I’m using my immersion chiller). A portion of this trub now seems to flow largely unabated to the pick-up tube. When I used whole leaf and a hop screen, the settled hops formed a really nice “filter” of sorts, and I used to get clear wort from beginning to end.

I’ve tried whirlpooling and I agree with others on this forum who suggest whirlpooling to pile trub in the center of the kettle is an urban myth; my whirlpooling efforts seem to support this notion and the trub gets stirred up and re-suspeneded as soon as I fire up the whrilpool pump! All of this being said, I’ve managed to come up with clear wort for “part” of my runoff (see attached pic of my recent Best Bitter). This pic represents only the middle part of the runoff though. It seems that at the beginning of wort collection I get a burst of trub, but after the pick-up tube drills out a half-dollar sized hole, everything is quite clear for a bit. Then towards the end of collection it gets real cloudy again (so much so that I have had to dump the last 4 to 7 quarts!). I’ve had better luck with lagers, but I think that has to do with the “type” of break material you get when you do step-mashing and decoctions. The trub tends to settle more tightly than brews made with a single-temp infusion and well-modified ale malt. I’d really like to hear from the braintrust here. What are you doing that I can learn from?

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[chasjs]

Jim:

I have not done this yet but am planning to and have seen some people do variation on you tube. Take your hop back, put rice hulls in a mesh bag and place in your hop back. It should act as a filter.

I came across this because I have a Blichman Hop Rocket and they say only use it with whole leaf hops which are getting harder to find. I found some videos on the Hop Missile (an exact clone of the Hop Rocket) and they use pellet hops mixed with rice hulls in a mesh bag. If you recipe does not call for hops at that point I don’t see why you could not just use the rice hulls. Worth a try since you already have the hop back. Link to youtube video.

Pellet Hops in Hop Missile.

[RyanP]

I’ve heard just about every lager brewery talk about clear wort = clear beer, so I think you’re onto something here. Two ideas that I plan to try:

– The method to mimic some of the pros that use holding tanks. Put your beer into a fermenter and pitch your yeast. About 12 hours later, transfer to a new fermenter, leaving about a cup or so of whatever has gathered on the bottom of the vessel. This should help not only get clearer wort but also remove some of the weaker/dead yeast from fermentation.

– Recirculating through a filter. Many systems I’ve brewed on including my robobrew, I often recirculate for the last 10 min or so of the boil. I’m thinking of doing it sooner and doing it through a filter, something similar to a hop screen. I’ve done it through a hop screen before, but since it wasn’t dedicated it spreads the hop material out and plugs up too easily. I think if I go through a 2nd screen that has no hops in it, it could potentially filter my wort clean.

[RyanP]

I’ve heard just about every lager brewery talk about clear wort = clear beer, so I think you’re onto something here. Two ideas that I plan to try:

– The method to mimic some of the pros that use holding tanks. Put your beer into a fermenter and pitch your yeast. About 12 hours later, transfer to a new fermenter, leaving about a cup or so of whatever has gathered on the bottom of the vessel. This should help not only get clearer wort but also remove some of the weaker/dead yeast from fermentation.

– Recirculating through a filter. Many systems I’ve brewed on including my robobrew, I often recirculate for the last 10 min or so of the boil. I’m thinking of doing it sooner and doing it through a filter, something similar to a hop screen. I’ve done it through a hop screen before, but since it wasn’t dedicated it spreads the hop material out and plugs up too easily. I think if I go through a 2nd screen that has no hops in it, it could potentially filter my wort clean.

[Spauld]

Thanks guys, these are all interesting things to consider. I do have tons of rice hulls (I use them for lautering decoction brews). I got tired of not finding them at the LHBS and just bough a giant bag of them. So I may try Chuck’s idea first. I can’t really use my hop back anyone anyway, since it is designed for leaf hops.

I also like Ryan’s ideas, especially the first one which sort of sounds like a cool ship approach (something I’ve been kind of interested in trying anyway). I think Bierstadt does something like what you desribed don’t they? That said, I’m sure I’d have more than “a cup or so” of leftover material. In order to get every last drop of wort from my kettle, I’m sure a fair amount of break material would be flowing to the cellar. The reason I haven’t tried something like this before is that I always thought you needed to wait until the wort had settled clear before pitching the yeast, and of course I didn’t want it to sit that long without some kind of fermentation getting started. But the thought of pitching and then transferring is appealing. I’d like to learn more about that whole process.

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