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Whirlfloc and the "Fluffy Trub Syndrome"

philm63

Grandmaster Brewer
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Ok, has anyone else run into this?! I used a half tablet of Whirlfloc in my IPA today (5.25-gallon batch size) and even though I whirlpooled after chilling, when I drained it into the carboy I was short about a gallon, and the stuff left in the pot was full of very fluffy trub.

Without using Whirlfloc, I used to get the trub to settle nicely before draining into the carboy but that wasn't the case on my last two brews. Anyone have any input on this?

If using Whirlfloc; do I need to siphon instead of draining through the spigot on my boil kettle? And am I to account for additional water losses due to this "fluffy trub" by increasing the "Trub Loss" amount in my Equipment Profile? This would likely bump me up to about a 7.5 gallon boil volume to result in a 5.25 gallon batch in the fermenter.

Help?
 
I have exactly the same problem. I think it's beacause of poor recirculation before starting sparging. The wort is not "filter" enough before transfering it to the boil kettle and it is still full of protein. So when I add the whirlfloc, it precipitate all the remaining protein into this "white stuff" that you find in your boil kettle.

I stopped using it because I don't know how to improve my recirculation because of the limitation of my equipement.

Maybe someone else could provide better explanation.

Bye
 
I've foud this thread that could help us !

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,7020.0.html
 
Thanks for pointing me to the thread, sciyan - I thought I had seen that one at one point but couldn't remember where/when.

This was my second attempt at using Whirlfloc - the first was a Belgian Blonde that I just kegged today. I can remember commenting on how clear it ran from the boil kettle to the fermenter with little trub then out came a great big bunch of fluffy blobs of nastiness into my funnel - lucky thing I had a fine-mesh screen in the funnel at the time - but I thought nothing of it 'cause the beer, in general, looked real clear.

The IPA, on the other hand, came out with lots of fluffy trub and thinking a bit more; I realized the one difference was the amount of hops - the Belgian used about 1.5 oz of hops - came out real clean (except for the very end - got to stop tipping the kettle!) but the IPA had 5.5 oz of hops - came out muddy from the start - clogged my funnel big-time! Took a while to get it into the fermenter.

Not sure what the ultimate solution is yet, but I plan to limit its use to low-hop recipes until I figure it out.
 
How cold and how quickly are you able to chill the wort?  The speed and terminal temperature may affect how much junk is broken out.
 
Malt - I'm using a 50 ft x 3/8" IC in the wort and another 50 feet in an ice bath, I pulled this IPA down to the low 60's in under 10 minutes - a new record for this little brewery!

Am I on target in my assumption that the amount of hops in the brew will affect the amount of trub in the end independent of whether or not finings are used? This assumption is based on the previous brew being a Belgian Blonde with 1.5 oz of hops (the IPA brewed last weekend - the one I am currently complaining about - had a 5.5 oz hop bill.)
 
Absolutely the more hops in, then the more hops left in the boiler, assuming they're kept there somehow.  And hops do contribute to certain types of trub, but I'm not certain how large a percentage they are.

The gelatinous liquidy protein-like trub is more a function of the malts used and other things that affect the ability to break out such proteins. 
 
Would it be worthwhile to attach a screen of some sort to the inside of my boil kettle so that when I drain into the fermenter, the trub/hops/sludge stays mostly in the kettle and not in my funnel screen?

I plan to get a Boilermaker with a Hop-Blocker eventually but until then, is there an easy fix? I thought I saw somewhere that a metal scrubby was used, it was probably one of your ideas, now that I think about it. How to attach it, though?
 
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