HELP! 3 inches of break material in the bottom of my boiler!

[HantsGaz]

Hi All,

Any ideas what to do here? I've used Whirlfloc for the first time and have ended up with a good 3 inches depth of break material at the bottom of the boiler!! I should have a 23L brew length, but I've only syphoned off about 15 litres of clear wort!!! There's about 4 inches depth left in the boiler with the break material sitting just below.... Should I just go with what I’ve syphoned? Or wait till the morning to see if the break material has dropped any further (but risk infection)? I’ve already left it about 1 ¾ hours.....

Thanks, Gaz.

[Gurgeh]

ok - what's your priority, quality or quantity?

setting aside what you've got is probably a good start, but then you've got a couple of gallons to play for.

i would consider getting a sanitised collander and putting a sanitised muslin in it to catch any bits and bobs, then very gently pour your remaining wort through it - intending to leave as much solids behind as possible. getting the break material in the fv is not a big deal, but do leave any hop bits behind.

if you do a good job and can be assured of a short lag time then you could re-combine the two parts of your wort.

DOn't panic, i'm drinking a very nice pale ale right now <sip> to which the same thing happened - my hopstopper had blocked and I had to decant 30L, fix the hopstopper, pour the wort back, carry on as usual.... no problem

[HantsGaz]

Many thanks Gurgeh, would have replied yesterday evening but I was up against a time constraint (hence part of my panic!). Quality not quantity was the order of the day. Managed to eek out 4 gallons, so at least my cornie will be full. I've never seen so much break material before - will have to up my water quantities perhaps.

[steve_flack]

I've read several posts like these where people are worried about the amount of trub from whirlfloc/protafloc. I think people are too worried about it. I actually pump the entire contents of my boiler to my fermenter (minus hops of course) and ferment that (trub and all). The finished beers are bright and completely clear and no one that's ever tasted one has ever commented that there was trub carry over or anything like that.

So I'd suggest not worrying about it and just transfer the lot.

[Gurgeh]

ne'er a truer word spoken

so how are you going to prevent this happening next brew?

[Gurgeh]

breweries (& plenty of us) harvest yeast from the top and not the bottom because the bottom sediment contains all that trub along with the yeast.

But I have no doubts that SF harvest yeast from the bottom of his conical and his beers (made with no fear of trub and occasionally yeast harvested from the bottom) are plenty respected.

[WallyBrew]

ne'er a truer word spoken

so how are you going to prevent this happening next brew?

Read page 14 http://www.craftbrewing.org.uk/bc/bcpdf/BC2007-Sep.pdf and save some money by adding a half or even quarter of a protofloc tablet per 23 litres.

Thde tablets actually weigh 2.5g and more than half of this is active material - the rest being something like bicarb of soda and an organic acid to blow it apart when it hits the wort.

Copper fining rates are general in the range 10 to 40mg/l a half a protfloc/23 litres will give a least 54mg/l (EDIT - need new calculator 54 is per tablet - end EDIT)

Hilary's advice in the article is sound.

[HantsGaz]

Hmm, so what am I going to do next brew - well I'm brewing again today (but a stout this time). So, reading the article on copper finings I think I may put just a half a whirlfloc tablet in this time. What does everyone think? The article is talking about Protafloc, but I guess the same principle applies. (**EDIT. One thing I forgot to mention about yesterdays brewday was that I mashed for about 2 ¼ hours as I got stuck in traffic!! Not sure if the length of the mash would have any bearing on the amount of break material.....).

"One of the audience pointed out that many craft brewers had assumed that the correct rate was one tablet per 23 litres, about four times the rate quoted by Hilary. Hilary pointed out that an excess of copper finings would cause the protein to form a loose, fluffy sediment that would cloud up at the slightest disturbance. When the correct amount was used after cooling rapidly and a period of settling, a firm, compact sediment would be formed which would not easily be disturbed and would sit on the base of the fermenting vessel during fermentation."

That's exactly what I experienced yesterday. Below is a picture of the contents of my boiler, with the three inches of fluffy break sediment lurking beneath a lovely clear wort.



Also, here are some pics, of samples wort taken from yesterdays boil at different intervals. From left to right; 60 mins; 75 mins & 90 mins (after 1 x whirlfloc tablet for 15 mins). I left these on a window sill over night so this is the product of no forced cooling. There is a remarkable difference between the first and the second glass in clarity (just 15 mins extra boiling time) and the difference between the second and third glass (apart from the additon of the Whirlfloc tablet to the boil) is that the third glass has much more cold break material (easily triple the amount, but the clarity is far better).

[Gurgeh]

top photos!

forgive my curiosity, but why do you syphon from your boiler instead of using a hopstopper or similar?

[HantsGaz]

Good question. It's basically because I haven't got around to making one yet for the Burco.....

What do you reckon about cutting down to a half a whirlfloc tablet?

[steve_flack]

Don't you drop the trub from the conical though ?

I try to but I don't think it's that effective to be honest. More gets pulled out by the first slug of yeast that's pulled (which I don't reuse).

[HantsGaz]

Well, I cut down to half a Whirlfloc tablet and it definitely produced a slightly denser 'fluffy' sediment. I took similar samples from the boil again this time, but due to it being a stout I can’t see too much. It does, however, appear not to have had quite a strong cold break - as per the golden ale I took photos of. It may even be worth going to a quarter of a tablet but I need to do other lighter brews again to try the half tablet then quarter tablet out and that may not be for a while. Definitely got denser sediment though.

Thanks WallyBrew for posting the link to that article.

[ade1865]

If I may jump on board here, I made a Hop Back Mild recently which clogged my H&G boiler hopstopper. I had to gently agitate the wort to get it to come through ok. Am I right in thinking that from Steve's comments this is ok? This brew later turned out to be the one I thought may have been infected, as there was plenty of yeasty blobs on the surface after fermentation. Would this be due to my agitation?

Using the boiler again 2 days later to make a Big Lamp Big Lamp I found absolutley no problems with run off at all, completely the opposite of the mild. I used 1 tblt of protofloc in each batch. Is it the grain bill that would make a difference?

what is going on?

this second brew has gone like the clapper s and will probabaly be ready before the 1st, beutifully clear and tastes lovely right out of the siphon tube

[ade1865]

cheers chris

[HantsGaz]

Seems I have another problem with the beer now - chill haze. To recap, the wort was really clear after boiling and I pitched WLP004 (apparently this makes for a very ‘interesting’ Pale Ale even though it’s an Irish Ale yeast). I left the wort in the fermenter for 12 days (a good 5 days after fermentation had finished) and then racked to a secondary and added H&G isinglass finings to drop the yeast (I noticed the beer was very cloudy when I racked it, cloudier than I would have expected).

Three weeks on and the beer is still very cloudy and it looks like a case of chill haze (as the beer clears when it warms up to room temp). However, I use a twin IC and it cools the wort from boiling to 30 degrees in about 10-15 mins. I know that not cooling quick enough can cause CH, so what else can cause it - so I can try and eliminate from future brews?

Many thanks, Gaz.