Whirpool and Trub

[ScottV]

I am having issues with my trub pile staying together and believe i am losing a lot of wort - at least 1bbl at the bottom of my kettle

The process:

20bbl steam jacketed kettle - 69" ID

23.5# of hops - T-90 pellets

40 Koppakleer Tablets added 5 minutes before end of boil

Whirpool for 5 minutes
rest for 35 minutes

my trub pile does not stay together and is very "soupy" towards the end of run off.

any suggestions?

Thanks

Scott

[Jephro]

I know many people debate long vs. short WP times, but i like to run a strong WP at least 10-15 minutes and start knockout when the wort stops spinning (usually about 10 minutes). I have always had nice tight trub cones.

I just started working with a different Kettle and REV taught me a trick: Just as the trub cone becomes visible i turn off the glycol pre-chiller that cools the water flowing to the H/E. This allows me to slow down the knockout so i don't end up sucking little channels through the trub and breaking it apart into a "soupy" mess.

[Michael Murphy]

Slowing down the run off near the end is good advise, allthough I do a short whirlpool 1-2 mins and a 10-15 min rest.

Your using alot of hops, and if its alot 10 lbs+ of hops in the last 15 mins of boiling they really never sit down well. So there will always be a bit of lost wort.
Per haps you can have a dam built in around the drain so you can suck away from the trub pile.

If your double batching you could always pump the trub into your next brew and recover the wort sugar.

Either that or an inline filter before the HE would help.

[jay_c]

I usually run a fast transfer to the fermenter, a couple of degrees higher than target. Then, as soon as I see the trub pile I slow it down. it then it brings it down the the target temp.

[dereknobleluke]

I work on both a 40 bbl kettle and a 10 bbl kettle. On the 10 bbl kettle I have a small "dam" that parallels the interior kettle wall one inch towards the trub cone from the wort pump inlet. This works quite well and I do not need to slow down the wort pump to get a nice clear run. I do not have this in the 40 bbl and instead simply pump over to the FV much colder than usual and then four hours later dump the solids out of the bottom of the FV.

[Buckley]

I usually do a 10-15 min WP with the same for a rest after. I really think the rest is key. I have notice that right at the end i get channeling in the trub but I can't really slow my run off down. I have city water instead of glycol. something to work on in the future.... =)

[GlacierBrewing]

I've had very good luck (knock on stainless) with a thirty minute rest after boil, then 10-15 whirlpool, followed by immediate knock-out in the FV. My cone stays nice and (relatively) solid. I monitor the last bit out of the kettle and when parts of the cone start to peel off, I shut off the knock-out.

Dave

p.s. also make sure your using a kettle coagulant.

[liammckenna]

What's the shape of the bottom of your kettle/whirlpool? (dished, shallow, shallow cone, slightly convex, shallow inverted cone, etc)

If you are whirling for longer than 10 minutes, you may want to try whirling for less time. The shear stresses in many centrifugal pumps can play havoc with your nicely formed flocs and consequently formation of your trub pile.

Make sure your steam jackets are really off (no leakage at all into jackets).

Try an inline filter if all else fails.

Good luck.

Pax.

Liam

[ScottV]

I started this thread a while ago to try to find ways to tighten up my trub pile and increase my kettle yeilds on the hoppy beers. I have now decided that it is time to install a whirlpool to both increase yeilds and save time on double and triple brews.

I am in the market for any used tank that can be used as a whirpool, and have found only one.....

the only problem is it has a bish bottom. How big of a problem will this be on trub pile formation and wort serparation?

I can easily have a port weleded onto the side at the appropriate draw off hight, but am i just trading one imperfect situation for another?

should i wait for a flat bottom tank to come along?


thanks for the help,

Scott

[Moonlight]

I'd vote that dish would be just fine. For those sloppier trub piles (like mine), I'd think a dish would really be better than a flat. You will want a large opening in the bottom of the dish to get the trub out easily, and a port higher up to get the clear wort from. Exactly where the higher port should be will depend on the size of the dish and your trub amount, but that can be welded in later when you are sure.

[Fred Scheer]

HI Scott:
I think your problem with your "soupy" trub pile is your timing.
Assuming that you don't over-load the kettle with hops, dry
10 minutes of wp'ing and 15 minutes rest.
I believe your 35 minute rest is simply to long.
Cheers,
Fred

[brewbong]

Kettle coag definately.
5-7 whippin' whirl
20-25 min settle, depending on how much late hop.
Also, some folks have a center draw on a dish or cone bottom kettle, if you use this port you will throw all the crap from the bottom where you want it back up.
Just wanted to mention it because I have seen it done.

[fdkassik]

I do pretty much the same with an eight minute whirl with total time before transfer at thirty minutes. With most batches this works great, however with my stout I use an english fuggel which comes out soup no matter what I seem to do. Any Ideas?

Have a great week,
Frank Kassik
Kassik's Brew Stop

[Gregg]

Also, some folks have a center draw on a dish or cone bottom kettle, if you use this port you will throw all the crap from the bottom where you want it back up.

Not sure what you mean by a "centre draw" - can you elaborate please?

Gregg

[brewbong]

Some kettles, not all, are equipped w/a drain port at the dish bottom or cone bottom, this is not the case w/flat bottom. I have seen this used a w/p inlet on rigs that do not have hard piped manifolds. This port works fine if you are gravity feeding into an external w/p, however, if you are doing your w/p insitu as previously pointed out the sheer may undo what you worked so hard to do (create large stable flocks).

[Gregg]

brewbong : Thanks. This is of interest because I have specified just this for our 25 hl (21 bbl) kettle/whirlpool : a shallow cone with a trub dump port at the centre, 1.5" wort outlet on floor at perimeter. We have not ordered yet, so specific observations would be very helpful. If trub formation will tend to be loose, we could specify a dam - say 120 degree arc, 3" high, 3" from wall - or a flat floor, but I would be reluctant to lose the trub dump port.

Not sure what this has do do with the wort inlet configuration though.

Gregg

[gitchegumee]

Frank, I have used the same stout recipe on three different systems with the same loose trub piles. None of the rest of my beers have this sloppy mess after the same whirlpool schedule. I don't think it's the hops: Whirlpooling is governed by Stokes' law which has viscosity as one variable. I'm nearly sure that my use of oats in the mash makes this trub pile unsettled. Are you using oats in your stout? Anyone else have this experience?

[Fred Scheer]

Could you please excplain Stokes' law as it related to suppy trub etc.
If you can provide an example, that would be great.
Cheers
Fred

[gitchegumee]

Stokes' law relates frictional forces in liquids to their viscosities. I lifted this from elsewhere: "At low velocities, the frictional force on a spherical body moving through a fluid at constant velocity is equal to 6 times pi times the product of the velocity, the fluid viscosity, and the radius of the sphere." We're not talking tiny spheres when we discus hop particles, but it's the best answer we can get. Going further, the law also explains how the density of solid particles relates to their settling rates. It's used to design settling ponds, centrifuges, and fermenters, among many other things. It's also used to describe terminal velocities of skydivers or a coin dropped in an ocean. So this law relates to sloppy trub piles by showing that if all else is equal, then trub will form a dense, compact pile when the hop density is much greater than the wort, and when the wort viscosity is low. Increasing the wort density and increasing the wort viscosity will yield slower settling rates and hence a less dense trub pile. But there's more than just Stokes' law at work; In 1928 Einstein described the whirlpool effect by noticing his tea leaves settled in the center of his cup instead of the perimeter, which seems more intuitive. He was the first to relate the forces at work and develop a general expression for this. Knowing how these all these forces work can help us understand successful whirlpools. Hope this helps! Cheers!

[Fred Scheer]

HI Phillip:

Excellent explanation.
Now, having said all the forgoing, I would like to bring some examples
from the practice.
We brew on 8 bbl kettle (full) systems; various types of Ales.
Now, our lightest beer has a Gravity of 1.048 and a Hop (pellets) addition of ~ 2 lb. Trub in kettle after K.O. very compact.
As Gravity increases with the same hop rate, trub still is compact.

As we increase the hop rate, the trub cone slowly get's suppy around the outher surface. The maximum hop rate on that system is ~ 8.5 lbs hops.
Nothing else changed, same pump, whirlpoolin 10 minutes, rest 15 minutes.

We had hops with higher alpha acids, and where able to increase hop rate to 10 lb per batch.

Cheers
Fred

[jjs]

Maybe try a more aggressive boil. Seems to me that you would increase coaggultion. No doubt that oat oils will "grease up" your trub.