Hi Everyione
I’m a beginner at 5 gallon home brewing. I screened out the hops with nylon screen after the boil, as I poured it in the fermentation, and also stuff at bottom of the kettle. For future reference should I do that? I was told it was a good thing, so I did.
The stuff at the bottom is also referred to as kettle trub. There are different opinions on this topic, but I dump it into my fermenter. The trub contains zinc, lipids and other good things that aid in yeast health and growth. Also, by at least one experiment, it actually leads to improved clarity. I’ve never experienced any negative impacts.
I remove the hops, but leave all the trub (sediment). An easy way to do that is to put your hops in a muslin bag. Then you can just remove the bag after the boil.
I dump everything into the fermenter with no noticeable issues. Although you can sanitize the screen, I don’t like something else that hasn’t been boiled touching the wort. (A typical screen has overlapping wires with crevices where they touch together.) I like Denny’s method of using a muslin bag since it gets boiled, but I like the hops to swim free. IMO - Simpler is better.
I whirlpool to cool so it leaves a pile of hops in the middle of the kettle along with some of the trub. The rest just gets drained into the fermenter. I can’t remember the reference, but like it was said above, it’s supposed to be good for the fermentation. Something like “clear into the kettle, cloudy into the fermenter “. …or something like that.
I really appreciate everyone’s response. I will try all of these methods over time. The reason I ask with a 5 gal boil I’m afraid I’ll lose beer at the end when I keg the final product. God forbid that should ever happen. I could add an extra 1.5 gal of water.
Thank you all!
If you do add more water to get a certain volume, ensure you add more fermentables as well or you may miss your gravity goal.
I agree that it simpler to leave them loose if your system is set up to deal with that. If not, muslin bags are a cheap and easy solution.
This probably does not apply to your brewing, but it is a good idea to leave as much trub as possible behind if you 1) are using a counterflow or plate chiller, and/or 2) harvest yeast.
I bag my hops, but that only really works for me when I use whole hops. Pellets are too finely macerated to stay within the bags I use. In both cases, I whirlpool and use a sanitized funnel with a removable screen to both aerate the wort and remove the larger bits that don’t stay in the whirlpool cone. Sending clear wort into the fermenter requires a lot more work than I’m willing to do.