trub or no trub-brulosophy

[joe_feist]

I’ve been on both extremes for trub removal. In the beginning I was very anal about looking for all sorts of ways to keep the trub out of the fermentor. Later, I got a little lazy and just dumped everything out of the kettle. I’m pretty middle of the road, now. I siphon off the side of the kettle to minimize trub, but don’t lose any sleep at all when some trub makes it’s way through. I hadn’t made the clarity correlation as I didn’t make any side by side comparisons, so that was good info…

[morticaixavier]

I should pay more attention. I effectively do a side by side experiment everytime I brew a 10 gallon batch. I run off into two buckets after whirlpooling. the first bucket gets very clean wort with only a small shot of trub at the begining. The second bucket often gets a big shot of trub at the end as I’m trying to hit my volumes. I’ll try to pay attention the next few times.

[ynotbrusum]

@wort-h.o.g

@ynotbrusum

This will have an impact on choosing a method for re-pitching, won’t it? I use the nylon hop bags (not really worried about trub without hop particulate) during the boil, so I can remove my false bottom from the boil kettle and see what happens when I don’t strain any break out.  Maybe a Helles will be a good one to judge by, especially if I also combine this with the temperature step approach advocated in another thread for quicker lager beer.

do you mean harvesting trub free slurry? So as seen in the stratification pics, i might be inclined to just skim the top layer off and use that for repitch, leaving most of the hop and break trub behind…but perhaps it doesn’t matter???

Yes, trub level in the slurry as a concern on re-pitch, but also, if the hop particulate is the source of the “bite” mentioned as the taste difference, you wouldn’t want that to carry forward, either.  Like you said- maybe it doesn’t matter?l

[jeffjm]

Basic Brewing and BYO did a group experiment a couple of years ago on this topic. According to them, additional trub helps fermentation vigor and quality, or at least didn’t hurt. The difference between the two was generally detectable both in terms of clarity and flavor, but preferences were about evenly split as to which was better. The “trubier” beers may have been a bit hoppier, but also a bit more harsh.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr02-23-12trubres.mp3

Unfortunately I can’t find anything that was written up in BYO as a result. The MP3 - about an hour - is still worth listening to if you’ve got some time.

[majorvices]

For the record, for years I brewed 10 (closer to 12) gal. batches and settled most of the trub out in the kettle. Ran the first half of mostly trub free into a carboy and the second ran it “worry free” chock full of trub and hops. The first I chose my next gen of yeast from since it was cleaner. Never ocne did I ever notice a major difference in the beers that i would have dialed in as “trub” related.