Whirlfloc in Secondary

I brew in 1 gallon batches and typically transfer from a primary to a secondary after the most active fermentation has taken place. Even with care I have been finding that the beer in the secondary isn't clearing as well as I'd like so I decided to try an experiment on the most recent batch. I boiled a 1/2 cup of water, added 1/8 of a tab of Whirlfloc and dumped this into the secondary prior to adding the beer from the primary. The result was quite amazing as within 12 hours the beer was crystal clear!  Two issues that concern me though. The first is that I have a rather strange layer of small chunks floating 1/2" below the surface of the beer. Nothing I've tried will get them to either sink or surface, so there they hang until they will no doubt get sucked up when I come to bottle the beer. Perhaps this layer of stuff was in my previous batches as well and I just never noticed it because of the general cloudiness of the beer. The second concern relates to the yeast in the secondary. Have I caused it to settle out along with everything else and will this effect the final fermentation?

Any thoughts, comments or ideas appreciated.

DD

Hi there!
I'm not a pro but I've never used Whirfloc on the secondary. It's a surprise for me. I use whirlfloc during the boil on the last 10, 15 minutes.
When I have no Whirlfloc I use add unflavored gelatin to the secondary with amazing results. I let the gelatin works during the last two days at the secondary.

Rgds, JOJO

Like Jojo, I've only ever used Whirlflock in the boil. I'm loathe to put anything in the beer post-knockout unless it's hops or a flavoring ingredient ... certainly nothing chemical (although Whilrflock is basically Irish moss in tablet form). The idea of putting stuff in your beer to clear it seems contradictory to me. Cold crash it for a few days prior to bottling. Otherwise keep in mind that cloudiness is only an aesthetic problem (and only if you see it as one); the beer will taste the same.

Whirfloc, Irish moss is basically carrageenan.  It needs heat to fully disslolve and drop back outout for you.
Gelatin finings is a preferred secondary fermentation clarifying agent; and there may be some newer ones, but it is best to leave carrageenan for the boil.

In my opinion the irish moss is designed to be used in the boil only. It coagulates the proteins when the beer is cooled, using the temperature drop to help congeal all proteins and other nasties into a nice gelled blob which if whirpooled stays in the middle like a cone at the bottom of the boil kettle along with hops.

Perhaps if you used the whirfloc like gelatin, heating up some water or wort, dissolve the whirfloc then  add it in it would work better

As the others I have usually used irish moss in the boil and then a small gelatine mix added to the FV a few days before bottling.

Perhaps you can transfer to another FV on bottling day and put it though a sieve to remove these bigger chunks?
At this stage you could add your priming sugar to kick of a small fermentation in the bottle for your carbonation?
Maybe that helps.

Appreciate the feedback. I usually use whirfloc in the boil as I did with this batch. Adding the additional small dose to the secondary was simply an experiment to satisfy my curiosity. (The nice thing about one gallon batches is that if things mess up the loss isn't that great). Although the whirlfloc in the secondary had the desired effect I'll probably stick to gelatin and/or cold crashing in the future. As for the strange floating chunks I dealt with those by wrapping the end of my syphon tube with a small piece of sanitized cheesecloth when I transferred from the secondary to the bottling pail. This might well be the clearest batch yet but the taste is what counts. I'll update on that in a few weeks.

I've used isinglass pretty regularly in the secondary with excellent results. Although it's used primarily for clarifying wine, it does a great job of settling suspended yeast in beer also. I package (liquid), added when racking. Doesn't add any discernable flavor.