faithinchaos wrote:i cant seem to get that perfect hop trub cone that i see in so many homebrew pictures.
Well not for nothing but that's the domain of the cool kids.
As an aside one never knows how long the photographers in questions let it set before draining and snapping the pics. Maybe they cheated a little for the visual effect? Ya know - - Like the Red Lobster's glorious beautiful pictures of what looks like flawless delicious food in the TV ads and when you get there, the food looks (and tastes) like something rejected by starving Somalis?
i have a keggle with a copper elbow going to the outside wall.
How long does it take to go there?
You mean you are porting through the kettle wall using a tube with an elbow on it?
Suddenly the old school siphon seems like a solution, one can move it around.
Anyway, take soe time to contemplate the opening of that elbow. You want to think about how high above the trub line you want it to sit. It's going to suck some goo into the primary and through your chiller, but the goal is to minimize that.
As an aside flow volume is a really big deal in trub collection (or avoiding it).
If you are draining through a large diameter pipe the flow will be great and it will - of a certainty - capture and carry trub. A smaller diameter opening in the port will produce a lower flow dynamic and will take up less trub.
i use a counterflow chiller and i whirlpool. by the time the wort level gets low the pile of crap ends up spreading out and turning to soup.
Yes, that's because it just doesn't like you. Try singing in Italian. I hear that helps.
Have you considered tilting the kettle a scosh when you whirlfoc to get the trub into a more manageable and smaller space? Maybe giving it a little more time to settle out?
The down side of tilting the kettle is of course that your fixed point drain won't get all the wort out.
However, you really do have to sacrifice some wort to the god of the trub. He gets royally pissed if he's denied his share.