Beer Forum

I've been doing some all grain batches, following recipes in Brewing Classic Styles. I should be getting 5.5 gallons going into my fermentor, but I'm not. I am getting about 4.5, after chilling the wort and settling for 30 minutes. What gives, do I need to settle longer? Just getting SO much break material. It's throwing off my pitching rates, so my starters are ending up too big!

How are you transferring from your kettle to your fermenter? Are you sure that your volume measurements are accurate in your kettle? Are you finishing with about 6 gallons in the kettle or less? Could you be boiling off too much?

I also find that if I finish with 6 gallons in the kettle, I'll have to pull some break material into the carboy to get 5.5 gallons. I pull as much clear wort as possible, and then just don't worry about the break material I pull in. It all settles out during fermentation, and I don't have clarity problems.

Just adjust your final knock-out volume accordingly. With my system, I need to leave behind about a gallon of trub and crap so I brew 6.25 gallon batches. Once I get everything into the fermenter (sans all the trub), I pour the remaining stuff into plastic soda bottles, let it sit in the keg fridge a couple days, and then decant off the wort and freeze it for starters. That way the only thing that goes to waste is the liquid trub.

With the JZ recipies (which I brewed one of today), just increase the over-all malt and hops to account for the extra .25 gallons. Doesn't take more than an extra pound of malt and 1/2 oz of hops (for most beers).

Or just crush your grain a bit finer so you get 75-80% since the JZ recipies are for 70%.

Thanks for the replies. I am hitting my pre-boil and post-boil volumes that are described in the recipes. I transfer using an autosiphon after about 30 minutes of settling after cooling with an immersion chiller (non-whirlopool). Maybe if I do like you say and bump up the recipe to give me a post-boil of 6.25g, and then not worry about some break material coming through to the fermentor, I would be good. I brewed the BCS O'fest, and JZ says he likes to leave as much of the break material behind for lagers. I'm just confused why it's an issue for me, and why I don't get what I should out of the normal recipe/procedure.

What type and quantity of kettle finings are you using?

Over-fining can make trub extremely "fluffy" and waste beer. -WAAY too much can make ale yeast clump up like floating "brains" in the fermenter. (Experience-based observation.)


Adam

I use one LDCarlson Whirlfloc tablet at about 10m before flameout with a 6 gallon batch (boiled down from 7).

There used to be a PDF floating around with the official recommended dosage rates and it was 1 tablet per 50 liters of beer. 6 Gallons puts you at about 23 liters so a half tablet is closer to the ideal dosage rate for 5-7 gallons of beer.


Give it a try and see if your break/trub is more compact.

I'm also driven crazy by all the break material and trub that ends up in my fermenter; I know it's good for yeast health but I've got yeast nutrition down that's not really a problem; I'd prefer to have less protein in my fermenter...
I really want some sort of kettle filter and I'm considering getting a hop back and running the last 1/3 of my kettle runnings through a hop back full of whole hops for my hoppy beers. (I figure I can get both amazing hop aroma and possibly filter out some of this crud. (But it's not really worth it to me if I can't filter out the crud...)


Adam