Recently I switched from an immersion chiller with a whirlpool arm to a plate chiller (thermonator). One thing that I like about the immersion chiller is that I could let the cold break settle in the kettle before I transfered. With the plate chiller I can still whirlpool to avoid transfering hot break but the cold break is ending up in the fermenter. I do not have a conical with a dump valve so it stays there. I have seen many opinions from forums, Noonans book on lagers, old Brewing Technique articles, ect. that all seem to vary a bit in the net effect of cold break on fermentation, finished beer, stability, ect. but haven’t fully decided whether it’s truely impacts my homebrew.
For some reason it DOES really bug me now that I’m transfering ALL the cold break… but I’m also to lazy to do anything about it (i.e. allow the beer to settle in one carboy then transfer to another carboy) unless I’m positive there is an advantage. For me, that will mean continuing to tast test my beer and see if I percieve any change in flavor.
Anyone else ponder this question and have an opinion as it relates to the homebrewer?
I don’t worry about cold break too much, it doesn’t adversely affect your beer. So in short, I don’t make and effort to keep it out of the fermenter, but it also don’t try to get it in there either. If it does, it does…whatevs.
I used to worry about it, but after a while realized the hugely diminishing returns in trying to keep it out. I use an immersion chiller, and siphon out of the BK into the fermentor. I do let the wort settle in the BK for 15-20 minutes after chilling while I do some cleaning and sanitizing. Then I siphon from the top and slowly move the racking cane down, getting mostly clear wort. If I suck up some cold break on the way, I don’t stress it.
I don’t care if it all ends up in the fermenter, though the whole hops catch some of it. AFAIK people who like to brew super clear lagers want to leave out most or all the trub.
sorry yes I do - but prior to having a conical, I never worried about cold break all that much.
another similar way to do it with buckets or carboys would be to run off from your kettle into a fermentor, let the break settle then siphon into a second fermentor, leaving as much or as little CB behind as you want. I was too lazy to do that more than once though.
I’ve done lagers in carboys with all the CB in it, and lagers in a conical with 2 trub dumps (1 prior to pitching, 1 at high krausen) and they are always crystal clear. YMMV
No practical experience with that on my part guys. Good to know about flavor- which is what I’ve always suspected but was more thinking of clarity issues. But again I brew ales and don’t care about bright lagers. :
I don’t worry about it at all. I generally shoot for 5.5 gallons post boil so when I get to that, I quit transferring. Whatever (if any) is left in the kettle, I let settle, dilute, and pressure can for starters.
Kia posted this somewhere. There is some English at page 76.
"In terms of the final beer quality, neither an increased lauter turbidity of wort nor a hot trub addition to wort leads to a significant deterioration of flavor quality, flavor stability, haze stability, and foam stability."
It doesn’t say cold break but the hot break is there and they didn’t vorlauf so the cold break has to be there too.
I don’t care about it at all at the moment. Maybe when everything else in my system and process works perfectly with no flaws I’ll get around to worrying about transferring break material to the fermenter. It’s way down the list.
Nope, switched to a CFC years ago and never had problem I’d contribute to cold break. Even though I have a conical, I don’t bother with removing cold break.
I don’t care about it too much though I will say I think it is far better to leave as much hops and trub behind in the kettle as possible.
Also, if you are not dropping the temp down below 45 degrees and letting the wort sit for several hours you won’t get much cold break anyway, so there is no need to worry about cold break at all unless you are brewing lagers and have the ability to actually drop the cold break after chilling and setttling.
I havent spent too much time worrying about it. I pull some into the fermenter but not much. I typically wind up with about 2 qts of break material and beer left in the kettle.
