Beer Forum

Making my second batch of brew and was wondering if this was a normal amount of trub. My first batch didn't have half as much. This is the third day of fermentation and it is a IPA. The image is here: http://i759.photobucket.com/albums/xx23 ... 102f75.jpg.

That does look like quite a lot, assuming you did a 1 gallon fermentation.

I've had brews where I've had over gallon of trub in a five gallon batch which looked a lot in the early stages, but by the time I came to doing a transfer it had settled out and compacted right down.

I sure hope it compacts and goes down.

If you really want it to compact as much as possible, give it at least a week at near-freezing after it's totally done.

Definitely seems like a lot of trub to me. How did you get the wort into the jug?

I used a funnel

I assume you cooled it to pitching temperature before pouring it from the brew kettle otherwise you are adding a lot of oxygen at the wrong time.

Did you pour the entire brew kettle contents? If you are going to pour and use a funnel then you should consider using a strainer to reduce the trub. Other ideas are to get a kettle with a spigot so you can drain most, but not all, of the wort to leave some trub behind in the kettle.

Alternatively, you could use a siphon to draw out the cooled wort from the kettle to the fermenter. You can use the siphon with or without a strainer on the tip (wort drawing end) of it. A simple strainer for the siphon can be accomplished simply with a tied hop strainer bag tied over the tip. Or even easier, use a siphon with a tip on the end and avoid touching the bottom of the kettle and stop drawing wort when it becomes cloudy.

Getting rid of the trub at every phase of the process will give you clearer beer and likely less hazy beer.