Clear Wort?

[Eric]

My beers have improved beyond expectation since reading and joining this forum but I have always struggled with the run off from the mash.

Now I mash in an unmodified 24 litre coolbox with extra insulation and it is simple and ideal. The mash is transferred to a fermenter with tap and dinner plate false bottom of DaaB's where I batch sparge. Now this arrangement is, in my opinion, vastly better than the grain bag AND the wort is supplied evenly from the bottom of the tun and does not suffer from seepage of dilute wort down the sides to the tap. However, I still don't get clear wort after the first 2 or 3 litres, in fact it's down to a trickle before it is as clear as in other people's pictures I've seen.

The rate of flow through the false bottom is fine, it starts as a torrent if the tap is fully opened but it seems not to matter what speed the liquid is drawn. It takes the same time before getting the clarity I'm led to believe I should have. By then the flow is slow and I would assume the restriction is not the false bottom but the tightness of the grain.

How much does beer quality depend upon a clear wort? The run off from my boiler is clear like other folks pictures even with somewhat murky wort.
Would 2.5mm holes in the false bottom make an improvement?

It seems to take a good hour more than expected just recycling wort until I get fed up and take what's coming before the flow gets even slower. I left the tap open after I'd finished the last mash and collected half a litre in about an hour. That was crystal clear but impractical. Is this that important?

[Scooby]

IMO the clarity of the sparged wort has no impact on the quality of the finished beer.

When using a jug I circulated 2 jugs just to get rid of the large particles. I use a pump now and circulate for 1-2mins, my wort is never very bright into the boiler, but after the first jug full is crystal clear coming out.

[Eric]

Thanks Scooby, that's just the sort of message I'd hoped to get. The first few litres are quite muddy but if I wait until getting anything like the pictures I see the flow rate is dismal.
Does anyone hold a contrary view?

[trucker5774]

My runnings from the mash tun are not super clear, but are free from bits. I always run throught a sieve too.

My wort post boil, if cooled and settled properly and run off slowly is pretty clear. It can depend on filtering systems and speed. I dont worry about it. It will drop bright during the fermentation and I always end up with a clear beer. I use Irish moss in the boil but will swith to protofloc tabs when it runs out (I saw a guy on youtube boil irish Moss for 90 mins....?)

[Eric]

I used to get fairly good results with Irish moss and just a sieve but now use Protafloc and a homemade hop filter and the results are much better. Which of those has had the greater effect I can't say.

Before this year I'd not brewed since about 2001 and have introduced many changes to give substantial improvements. However I've been trying to produce clear wort like in some pictures I've seen but I could only do that after an inordinate period. From what you say I can just avoid the worst and let the rest of the sediment be filtered at after the boil saving a great deal of time and without detriment to the end product. Thanks.

[Scooby]

A couple of points, it's the grain in the tun forming a stable bed and the hops in the boiler that do the main filtering job, notice the clear wort from a boiler fitted with a copper pipe drilled with 3mm holes.

It's possible that the pics you have seen of very clear wort are from a system that circulates the wort during the whole mash period.

[Capped]

On this day last week,elsewhere on JBK I requested urgent advice (which was graciously given,thanks) when the hot wort flowing from my boiler was very 'mucky'. This was caused by an area of the mesh sieve hop strainer remaining exposed to the wort above. I was pulling break material through all the while. Anyways,I sterilised all my bottles this morning,and noted the huge sediment in the FV,which went right up to the tap. As I transferred it to the bottling bucket I knew from the totally unacceptable turgidity that I'd wasted my time by sterilising the bottles. Against my usual practise,it's gonna stay in the bottling bucket for at least a week to hopefully drop most of the gunk out of suspension. The beer may well turn out alright but it's a hassle I can do without as Sunday's are the only days I've really got time on my hands,and I was planning to brew next Sunday without having to bottle this lot,too. BTW,this was one of my frequent 'experimental' brews and I used 300g of flaked maize and only 3kg pale + a coupla minor adjuncts. This it seems,has contributed to an awful lot of the matter in there as my mash-tun run-off wasn't too clever either,and comprises much of the stuff I'm waiting to drop out. Really got to get my act together...

[Scooby]

What you can do in a situation like that is collect the run off in a fv and let the break and any other particulates drop out, then run off into another fv. obviously you need to pitch the yeast and get it working asap but 2-3 hrs would't cause any harm.

[Eric]

There's nothing wrong in the clarity from the boiler despite my concern about what's going into it.
The boiler filter is 15mm copper pipe with saw cuts, homemade after looking at pictures on this site and it works a treat.
My beer drops bright without fining having used SO4 yeast about 10 days in the FV.
I understand that wort clarity varies dependent upon grain types and adjuncts used.
The run off from the mash tun is turbid at first and clarifies as time passes, the longer the run off, the clearer the wort.
Clarity seems to be not so dependent upon the volume as the time, i.e. if I open the tap more fully it doesn't clear any more quickly.
I can get my wort as clear as seen in pictures on this sites and other places but it takes significant time by when the flow is down to a trickle and it takes ages.

I've made what I think is very drinkable beer off and on for over 20 years BUT since signing on here I'm able to make improvements beyond previous expectation.
The question might be, is my expectation too great? Should I expect clear wort?

[leigh1919]

for what it's worth, i normally get my wort significantly clearer than 'first runnings' after about three or four jugfuls - but i always thought the boil is where the wort becomes clear - i've always had decent enough clarity with a 90 minute boil and whirlfloc.

The dark mild I bottled three weeks ago will be ready on thursday and that was a 60 minute boil...will wait and see what the result is!!

[Eric]

The first picture is the output from the mash tun when I got fed up. It was of course an awful lot muddier at the start.

The second is after the boil, chill and cold break.

Comments please.

Eric.

[mysterio]

Leigh is right, a good 90 minute boil and whirlfloc/protofloc should have your wort as clear as a pint of cask ale. Eric's pictures are a good example of how the wort should look at these two stages.

[Scooby]

Eric's pictures are a good example of how the wort should look at these two stages.

I'd say your wort from the tun is clearer than mine with a normal 1-2 min circulation, I have circulated for longer and it was similar to yours.

In both cases the wort into the fermenter was the same as yours.

Leigh is right, a good 90 minute boil and whirlfloc/protofloc should have your wort as clear as a pint of cask ale.

That says it all.

[Eric]

Firstly, thanks to all. Well that sums up this and much else of my life, I've been p__ing against the wind believing I should try harder and do better as every school report told me. However, can it open doors to other concepts.

I would have thought that clearer wort would make better beer even if it's not easy and also marginal not to be readily discerned, but it seems that by the silence by some of the prominent, the jury could be still out on that. So, would it perhaps be better for those of us who batch sparge to maximise the volume of the first and reduce the subsequent to speed the boil to delay and minimise the unwanted rather than the usually accepted symmetry?

Secondly there's a thread presently on here titled "Anyone done 2 different brews with 1 mash?" that surely would allow greater time to achieve a clearer wort from the second while the first, more exotic brew, was boiled.

Does anyone think this might open the doors to a more enticing world?