Cold break + hop strainer/false bottom = pointless

[admin]

?

My "kettle" is a plastic bucket with two elements and a hop strainer at the bottom.

It just occurred to me today that using a hop strainer or a false bottom will drain off the cold break material into the fermenter. And without whirlpooling or syphoning, it's impossible to prevent this.

What are other people's thoughts?

If in addition cold break is ending up in the fermenter anyway, well then is there any point in crash cooling in the first place?

[Rossa]

If you whirpool it should drop out..if given enough time to settle..to the bottom of the bucket. When I use leaf hops I whirlpool too with a pump and find the hops filter out the trub more or less when I use a false bottom.

[Eoin]

I'd say why worry, it's standard for people with counterflow chillers to put all of their cold break into the fermenter, that includes all the pros. It appears that cold break would also have lots of yeast nutrients in it also.

[Eoin]

So is there any point in to crash cooling if all cold break material is ending up in the fermenter anyway?

Well when you say crash cooling, the break material needs to be precipitated at some point even if in the yeast sludge in a fermenter it will eventually hit the bottom. You need to get to pitching temps to not kill yeast, you can do no-chill, you can use immersion chiller, you can do plate chiller.
There are a number of objectives and only one of them is precipitation of cold break, the main one is pitching yeast before an "infection takes hold", or at least pitching yeast before the wild yeasts that inevitably make their way in there take hold. That one is overemphasised also but it's a mix of myth and common sense that has us at the position where we try to chill as quickly as possible to pitching temps, and I believe that is the primary reason. The ability to remove foreign bodies at an early stage simply presents itself and is seized upon, but it's not really necessary.

[DEMPSEY]

The argument used,that the commercial brewery,s do not crash cool is often put forward,however I do not give too much weight to this as many brewery,s do not get a choice when buying brewing equipment. Mr Malty has a discussion on crash cooling v passing hot wort through a heat exchange. The general view is that some cold break is good as a yeast food. The pace at which you chill down the hot wort will have an effect on the isomerization of the hops,so taking longer to cool all the wort will effect this. 

[Spud395]

Another reason for cooling quickly is to try minimise DMS, the precurser for DMS (smm) may still be present, depending on malts used and other factors.
If so DMS will be still produced and wont be boiled off.

It's a myth that commercial breweries dont care about cold break in the fermenters. Some will always get in but they do try to minimise it. What gets into the fv will drop out and be racked off as quickly as possible in most cases.

Cold break is mostly protein and polyphenols which cause instability in the beer (chill haze and permanent haze) which effects the shelf life of the beer. Not always a concern in homebrew, but definatly a concern if brewing a big beer for keeping.

[DEMPSEY]

Spud395 is correct,the commercial brewers that I have seen of late all do much the same,cool through a heat exchange. The speed can vary depending on how good or big the HE unit is. A good design for a kettle I would use would have a large immersion coil fitted to the kettle for extracting the initial heat and save that to the HLT,once your below 60c,isomerization will end and as you drop the total heat of the wort you can drop the cold break before you transfer through the HE and on to the fermenter. My six pence worth.

[DEMPSEY]

Some do,the most important thing is to get all the wort cooled as quickly as you can. 

[Blackbrew]

I did a couple of no chill experimental batches, where all the cold break formed in the chill cube Jerrycan and then ended up in the FV. No sign of any DMS issues from multiple testers (some say DMS is a non issue with modern malting methods) but both batches had chill haze, bad enough for me to switch back to the immersion chiller and the water wastage that goes with that... If you are not getting any haze with your set-up then i would say the major cold break is getting stopped somewhere before your FV.

[Blackbrew]

HDPE Jerry can

[Blackbrew]

You can have it if you want to give it a try.
I wont be using it again, I hate haze! I know it doesn't taste but I just hate having to explain it to each person that try's the beer!

[Spud395]

Last summer (the relatively dry one) because I use my own well I no chilled 3 brews.
I did suffer 1 case of DMS, I never really figured out why it effected 1 brew and not the other 2.
It was a stout and very overpowered by the off flavour.

Chill haze may not be a problem if you're not keeping your beer for long, but from what I've read it will effect the shelf life of the beer.

[Blackbrew]

Good point on the dark and wheat... might hang onto it was planning an Imperial Stout for Christmas, maybe something with smoke, oak chips and rum

[Blackbrew]

Last summer (the relatively dry one) because I use my own well I no chilled 3 brews.
I did suffer 1 case of DMS, I never really figured out why it effected 1 brew and not the other 2.
It was a stout and very overpowered by the off flavour.

I wonder was this due to the grain bill the the stout, i have heard the no DMS statement from a few professional brewers but only in relation to pale malt malting methods, not sure if the same is true for speciality malts and unmalted grains.. what were the 2 successful batches pale ales?

[Blackbrew]

Did you get that in Woodies? I need to get some caustic soda too, so I need to make a trip soon.

Yes woodies €9.99 I think it was, check for foodsafe symbol (little fork and wine glass stamp) and HDPE or i think PP might be ok as well.