Cold Break Carry Over. Bad!!!Or Muah?!

[Damien M]

 I've been trying a few basic mods to my current plastic bucket boiler to improve/speed up the cool down but also to filter the Wort on the way out .

So far  I have unwound the copper to a larger diameter and repositioned to bias  upper levels of the bucket which has helped the cool down time.

To filter I have  used the following methods and mods:

Copper Tube with Holes that comes with Boil bucket: Crappy (nuff said)

Copper Tube with Muslin bag over it: Better but blocks easy especially with pellets. Is the Bazooka screen any better??

Copper Tube below an Inverted steel Pizza Tray(with holes) in a Lidl Laundry bag,  know quite a bodge job, but testing the false bottom strainer method without investing in one yet. This sits  over the copper tube but below the Heating Element.  Works well, in that it holds all the Hops back but I still see 1/2 to 1 inch of "stuff" in the bottom of the Fermenting Vessel and before Fementation really gets going so its not yeast sediment .

I suppose what I'm asking is. Should there be dead space in the bottom of the Boil Kettle to take the cold break sediment and lose a liter or so in trapping the Cold Break  proteins or is it possible to strain it all out, and if so what do ye find as the most effective strainer?? 

[Damien M]

Sure!!

[Tom]

I'd say Muah, but I have been having consistently better beers for removing the trub / cold break. I don't have a fancy schmancy copper, so I strain everything (via jug, which helps the aeration) into fermenter 1 with a tap, then once the cold break has all settled, I pour through the tap into Fermenter 2, which again aeratesthe wort.

I realise there's a lot of steps there that help make better beer (cooling, removing trub and aeration), but I can say it has been worth the effort of removing the trub.

Ultimately, a litre's deadspace below the tap on your kettle will have the same effect as my two fermenter carry on, except without the carry on.

[Damien M]

Thanks Tom,

I suppose it is the one time that we need the air (and accept the contamination that comes with it) and your additional steps lead to better beer which is what we all want.