Lots of rubbish at bottom of FV.

[Britannia]

Hi all. I've been brewing for a short while now. What I want to know is whether the build-up at the bottom of the FV is avoidable or not. The pictures are of a Brewdog Hop Fiction clone (not dry hopped, but steeped for 20 minutes) after 14 days and a Greg Hughes American Stout after 7 days.
Brews are approx. 11 litres, all grain, done on a gas hob in stock pots, cooled in the sink, then passed through a colander to remove hops, and a Richies sparge bag for other bits.
I skim off the hot break stuff while it's coming up to temp and at the start of the boil. I seem to be losing about 2+ litres. I've tried using a sediment trap with and without a Richies kit small straining bag. which just blocks up.
Is it something I will have to live with, or are there any remedies?
.

 

[smcc]

trub is normal its just the byproduct of fermentation, I will lose about 2l for 20l batch looks like you have about 1.5 which is a little excessive but not totally unusual some yeasts will have more than others . you have flocculating yeast, krausen, proteins etc that will just accumulate and fall out of suspension. Looking at your FV you could add a litre extra volume and still have enough headspace to offset the loss

 

[Hanglow]

You will have minimal trub if you have crystal clear wort going into your fermentor. Best way to do that is get clear runnings from your mash, then use a mix of copper finings towards the end of the boil at the right time and at the right pH, and then cool it quickly and let the hot break/hops etc settle out so you can easily separatethat from the clear wort into your fermentor

 

[Britannia]

Thank you for your prompt replies and god advice. I will take each in turn.

Smcc, yeast I tend to favour is Safale US-05, which states sedimentation is medium. As for headspace, I am limited by the volume of the stock-pot I use for the boil; 13.5 litres of wort is pushing it, and I don't think I should dilute after.

Hanglow, as I am a "table top" brewer I sparge in a spare FV with the mashed grains in a sparge bag with the sparge water poured over and left for 20 mins; then the bag is taken out and left to drain (I do give it a little squeeze, which may be wrong), so I don't think I have any way, with my present set-up, to recirculate. I do add half a Protofloc tablet with 15 mins of the boil left. Tried whirlpooling at the end, but can't get the hang of it, which is why I put it though a sieve and sparge bag at the end.

 

[Darren Jeory]

Hi all. I've been brewing for a short while now. What I want to know is whether the build-up at the bottom of the FV is avoidable or not. The pictures are of a Brewdog Hop Fiction clone (not dry hopped, but steeped for 20 minutes) after 14 days and a Greg Hughes American Stout after 7 days.
Brews are approx. 11 litres, all grain, done on a gas hob in stock pots, cooled in the sink, then passed through a colander to remove hops, and a Richies sparge bag for other bits.
I skim off the hot break stuff while it's coming up to temp and at the start of the boil. I seem to be losing about 2+ litres. I've tried using a sediment trap with and without a Richies kit small straining bag. which just blocks up.
Is it something I will have to live with, or are there any remedies?
.View attachment 42823View attachment 42822

I recently bought this to combat this problem...I wanted trub out without moving the beer

 

[MmmBeer]

Thank you for your prompt replies and god advice. I will take each in turn.

Smcc, yeast I tend to favour is Safale US-05, which states sedimentation is medium. As for headspace, I am limited by the volume of the stock-pot I use for the boil; 13.5 litres of wort is pushing it, and I don't think I should dilute after.

Hanglow, as I am a "table top" brewer I sparge in a spare FV with the mashed grains in a sparge bag with the sparge water poured over and left for 20 mins; then the bag is taken out and left to drain (I do give it a little squeeze, which may be wrong), so I don't think I have any way, with my present set-up, to recirculate. I do add half a Protofloc tablet with 15 mins of the boil left. Tried whirlpooling at the end, but can't get the hang of it, which is why I put it though a sieve and sparge bag at the end.

When I used to do BIAB, I built a wooden stand with a loop of bent steel bar to support a small washing-up bowl with its base cut out, around the rim of which was attached the bag.

This allowed me to recirculate the wort through the grainbed, using a jug and to sparge in the same manner. This sort of approach would help reduce the amount of murkiness getting into your kettle and therefore into your FV.

 

[Darren Jeory]

Are there any real tradeoffs with BIAB?

 

[Darren Jeory]

Some people say to stir the grain which you wouldn't do with a bag would you?

 

[-Bezza-]

Are there any real tradeoffs with BIAB?

Compared to using something like a Grainfather, there are a number of considerations but the ultimate tradeoff would be that BIAB has reduced efficiency and limited ability to control body. This comes from a number of things - more accurate control of the mash temperature, stepped mashing, recirculation, more effective sparge. Capacity is probably a second tradeoff. But otherwise, both will produce good beer.