Trub in fermenter

[Northern Brewer]

Just wondering what views people have on this.

Historically I have usually cooled my wort overnight, by which time the break material has settled out and I can leave most of this behind when transferring the to fermenter.

I recently transferred a couple of brews somewhat sooner and as a consequence I noted a fair quantity of break material settling at the bottom of the fermenter. Is this a big deal with ale style beers?

[Buzz]

I don't think there will be a definitive answer on this. Some will argue a bit of the cold break material is beneficial to the yeast, others will be of the opinion that you need to filter out as much of it as possible.

Either way, your beer will be fine.

[MartialAnt]

others will be of the opinion that you need to filter out as much of it as possible.

If it does need filtering out then thats me buggered. I use a tapless stockpot & just tip the lot into the FV.

[Oggy' Bar]

In theory trub in the fermenter is likely to enhance the risk of off flavours in the beer.

In practice, quite a few of my early brews and some of my later ones have had a fair amount of trub in the fermenter (partly as a consequence of using a CFC)

I can reduce the trub by 8uggering about recirculating the wort through the CFC and boiler and by leaving the cooled wort for an hour or so to settle.

However, I have not seen a significant difference in the finished product neither in taste nor clarity, in fact (so far and probably not statistically significant) The clearer wort has produced the haziest beer and my theory is that this could be because the higher protein content of the wort (my trub is protein not hop fragments) coagulates better and drags the suspended solids to the bottom of the fermenter more effectively. Then again, it could just be pure chance

One thing for certain though; I wouldn't worry unduly about carrying over a fair amount of trub into the FV.

I always ferment for 10 days (even if fermentation is complete after 2-3 days) so continuing yeast action may clear up any off-flavours if there were any. I don't use a secondary.

[Whorst]

Trub sucks! Think about it, if you have a two inch high wall of it, or more, in your fermenter, you're losing beer. It makes your fermenter smaller. Cool fast and siphon off the side of your kettle into your fermenter. My worts are very clear, with virtually no trub.

[Barley Water]

Well, I think it matters but how much is hard to say. I brew a fair amount of light lagers (Helles, CAPs and the like) and I always get the wort off the trub before fermenting. In beers like that, you just can not afford to do anything that will introduce "off flavors" as there is very little to hide behind with beers like this. I agree with Whorst, I want to cool to pitching temperature as quickly as possible which produces maximum cold break. I use a counterflow chiller and collect the wort in a plastic bucket (leaving the hot break and hop gunk in the boiler). I then rack the wort off the cold break into my fermentor then pitch the yeast.

Your question though was specifically about ales. Given that light lagers will be better if you ferment off the trub, I would think that your ales would also be better. Although any "off flavors" will not be nearly as noticable, I am willing to bet that they detract from ales as well. I look at it this way, since it is so easy to rack the wort off the trub, why not do it with ales as well as lagers? After all, isn't the whole point of this hobby to produce the perfect pint (whatever that is)?

[hoppingMad]

Well I have never done anything but chill my wort quickly and syphon off the trub so I can't say whether one way is better than another.
What I can say is that I agree with the comment that 2" of trub in the bottom of my fermenter will ultimately be a waste of beer, possibly up to 4-5 stubbies, which is too much wastage for me personally.
Secondly I feel that it is important to get my wort chilled down as soon as poss and not allow it to sit at that "high risk" temp stage which I think is somewhere around 35-40 C, for any length of time.

Having said that, If you are not getting any infection issue from leaving your wort to chill overnight, then fine.

It can also be argued that a rapid cooling with say an Immersion chiller over a 25-40 minute time frame gives a better cold break. Which in turn, and after fermentation and cold conditioning, will leave the beer bright clear. However, I have never tested this myself by NOT rapidly chilling ( then following with a cold conditioning period after ferm). I have simply relied on information provided by others.
Many, many homebrewers are not concerned with issues of clarity, therefore a simpler approach becomes more appealing.

If things like overnight cooling (and/or overnight mashing for that matter) are working for you, then go for it. Just be aware of any flavour issues that might creep in. Keep sampling other peoples' brews for comparison. And because its free

[Oggy' Bar]

Trub sucks! Think about it, if you have a two inch high wall of it, or more, in your fermenter, you're losing beer. It makes your fermenter smaller. .

2" I was talking of about 1/2"-3/4" max after fermentation..to get 2" I would have to transfer a good proportion of my hop bed. And with regard to getting less beer..I get everything above the FV tap and a bit more after I tip the FV, So, I doubt if I lose more than 1/2 pint. That's the thing about cold break material, when you see it in a bottle taken during the transfer to FV, it maybe fills 1/2 the bottle and looks rather worrying but after 24 hours it covers barely 1/2" and in the FV it seems to pack even tighter.

Having said all that, I don't disagree with any of your statements. If you can avoid transferring trub, then do so. But at 1AM after 4 or 6 hours brewing and given my experience of the likely outcome...there is no-way I am going to wait the extra hour for the trub to settle or worry about it when I could be tucked up in bed concocting my next brew.

[Northern Brewer]

Thanks to everybody for their comments so far. I should perhaps clarify that this business of transferring trub is only a recent occurrence that applies to a couple of brews due to a change in my method of operation.

I boil in an open fronted outbuilding and when this is complete I remove the bagged hops, bang the lid on my Burco, seal it in place with a wrap of cling film then leave it to cool overnight assisted by a reasonably powerful room fan. By morning the wort is very cold when I transfer it to my fermenter. The upside of this method is that the proteins have settled and I usually get to leave most, if not all, of this trub behind. The downside to this is that because the wort has become so cold, it often takes some time for fermentation to get going. This method has however served me well for a couple of hundred AGs and my beers are usually star bright.

Earlier this week I had a couple of days off, and decided to brew in the morning rather than the afternoon. As a consequence I noted that my wort had cooled to below 25C by 5PM so I decided to get it across to the fermenter even though the trub hadn't fully settled. As a consequence, the brew was fermenting away within 12 hours but I could see a 1/4" break material had settled at the bottom of the fermenter. I contemplated racking it to another fermenter but ultimately decided against this.

Within 48 hours the SO4 yeast had dropped; hence I now have a 1/4" yeast bed on top of the 1/4" trub bed, which I imagine is acting as a barrier between the trub and the beer. I am not particularly bothered about loss of volume because whatever doesn't fit into a Corni tends to get dumped anyway.

So, my only lingering concern is whether the trub and yeast are now interacting in some detrimental way, which could persuade me to keg before the usual 10 days. I am also questioning what to next time I brew in the morning; either settle/rack/pitch or pitch/settle/rack or leave overnight or don't worry. I guess the answer will depend upon how these current brews turn out!

[Buzz]

So, my only lingering concern is whether the trub and yeast are now interacting in some detrimental way

I think it will be the complete opposite and would recommend that you keg as usual. As you say, the final proof will be in the drinking. I'll be interested to hear what you think once it's ready to go..