Beer Forum

1: Does a finer crush for BIAB method contribute to break material, & if so would this be hot or cold?

2: If hop matter contributes to cold break, what techniques do you recommend to mitigate this. (Hop bag?)

3: In what ways does whirlfloc effect break material?


I would like some cold break in my fermenter depending on gravity and other factors but not 1.5 to 2 gallons as I'm currently seeing in my 1.070 OG highly hopped IPA wort. I really appreciate all the insight you folks have given me . I'm going for a higher quality product by what ever means or necessary. I brew in an underground concrete bomb shelter which I converted to a brewery so space and mess are no object. I'm open to any type of transfer or equipment methods you might recommend. Thanks!

I think you mean to say "trub" when you are saying "cold break". Trub refers to all that junk at the bottom of the kettle after the boil. Some of it is hot break, some of it is cold break, some of it is hop matter. Assuming this, the first part of question two is tautological; hop bags help, as will doing a whirlpool after the bottom and letting the trub settle out, then siphoning off the top. Another option is some sort of false bottom or screen on the outlet of your kettle. You can also rack to a fermentor, wait 6 hours (to overnight) for all the trub to settle, and then rack off it into another clean fermentor before pitching the yeast (I do this with my lagers when I really want to minimize the trub in the fermentor).

Whirlfloc causes proteins to coagulate and precipitate out of the wort, so it increases the break material.

siwelwerd wrote:I think you mean to say "trub" when you are saying "cold break". Trub refers to all that junk at the bottom of the kettle after the boil. Some of it is hot break, some of it is cold break, some of it is hop matter.

My bad. Let me "clarify" my question. Specifically I'm looking for information how my ingredient usage (grain crush, hop type and bag, & whirlfloc) effects break material.

To a lesser degree methods of tranfer. I think it would be a better method to whirlpool my just boiled 200 deg. wort then transfer to another vessel leaving behind the hot break, then chill the wart rapidly and transfer to fermenter leaving behind some of the "trub" formed during chilling. I'm pretty sure hot break and cold break can be handled separately this way but wanted to know if any one was doing it or only using CFC after whirlpool.

In my (somewhat limited) experience, BIAB will give you more 'stuff' than if you were to be doing a mash where you could vorlauf. This could be contributing quite a bit to what you see. A fine crush is going to make more dusty bits that will make it through your mesh into the beer.

Hey SpiderWrangler, A little off topic but what if I suspend the bag so the bottom of the bag was about a half inch from the bottom of the kettle then vorlauf back at the top of the bag with some tube.

I shake a majority of the flour out after milling. Hmmm.. Maybe I'm just not used to seeing all this break because I started with extract.

You might be able to get some more of the stuff out, but some will still likely go out the sides. Basically, a bag has greater surface area than a braid or false bottom, so either way you are going to get stuff coming through. If you are really concerned about it another option would be to chill and transfer to temporary vessel, then siphon to fermentor. A lot of the trub and break will settle out, and you can pull clearer wort over to the fermentor before pitching your yeast.