Some all grain questions

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Jakeyboi

Landlord.
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
Messages
515
Reaction score
264
Location
Hastings
Hey all,

I have just completed my fourth full extract kit and about to embark on my first all grain, but I have some questions if anybody could help with.

Flame out hops? I've read on another thread and the general consensus is to add when the wort is at 80c. I've currently been chucking them in at flame out and cooling straight away. Is this ok?

Whirlfloc and whirlpooling? I boil my wort in a 30L cooking pot with no false bottom or tap. I've seen online people whirlpooling the wort to collect all the proteins and debris. I can't seem to get this to happen. I can see all the proteins starting to coagulate together when I'm cooling but it doesn't drop to the bottom quick enough, so when I am syphoning lots of it gets into the fv. It almost seems like I should leave it alone for an hour before cooling so it can drop out. Any suggestions or tips on this? Also if the proteins do get into the fv, surely it would all just drop out in the fv, would this effect the beer..?

Hop spider. I have made a hop spider that suspends a Muslin bag into the boiler. When I removed it I gave it a good squeeze to get out as much wort as I could. Is that a bad idea?

I'm sure I will have a load more questions after my first attempt, but some help with these ones would by greatly appreciated

Jake
 
Q.1 As long as you're cooling quickly you'll be fine. If you dont the >80C temps will continue to isomerize the hops and increase the IBU's

Q2. Not sure about whirlpooling as I no chill. I normally rack/decant the wort off the break material the following day when the wort is cool and the BM has all dropped to the bottom of the FV.
The break material doesnt do any harm though. I've not bothered to rack the wort off it and piched with it in the wort loads of time. No difference in flavour afaik. In fact it's good for the yeast. They use some of it as 'food'

Q3. I dont use a hop spider but when I transfer the hot wort into my no chill FV I pass it through a seive first to seperate out the hop debris. I always squeeze any wort out of the hop debris with the bottom of the jug against the seive. I've never noticed any detrimental effects
 
I've been experimenting with different flameout techniques this year. Chucking leaf in at flameout and giving it a 5 minute steep seemed to be better for the aroma than a 10 minute steep. The best beers I've done, though, have been made by cooling to 80C, adding the hops and leaving to steep for 30 minutes before cooling to pitching temp.
I use a BIAB type of method so I tend to get a lot of debris in the FV. All I can say is mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!, nice beer. (Not scientific but hey-ho.)
I filter my hops out with a net curtain and give it a good squeeze to get the flavour out.
 
I chill to 80 then add the flame out hops. As for break material I have started just cracking the tap and letting the break gather on the bazooka filter then gradually opening it. This seems to hold back most of it. Although with my old kit I used to just tip it all in.
 
post boil/chill be prepared to wait a while,, even without a hop filter and a spider a 20-30 minute stand will let the break material start to drop out, and thats when a lil stir can encourage the whirlpool effect, but by the time the kettle drains down enough to see anything of it it will have collapsed, its a success If you have more sediment debris in the pot centre than by the wall ;)

Some break material in the FV is inevitable, with refining of your brewday procedures you can reduce it but its not a show stopper and it will fall out as trub in the FV so you can elect to rack off into a 2ndary FV if its really bugging you..

add 1/4 - 1/3rd of a protofloc tab or a teaspoon of irish moss when you sanitise your IC @ 15 minutes before the boil termination. And yes let it sit for at least 25-30 minutes before you consider stirring to whirlpool and draining it into the FV.

Have fun..
 
I use a bag to contain the hops during the boil (added via a Hop Dropper), squeeze the bag out when the time is up and then whirlpool the wort after cooling.

The take-off from the boiler is via a 15mm tap (with a 10mm insert to limit the flow rate) that is located about 2cm above the bottom.

After getting a good "whirlpool" going inside the boiler I put the lid back on and let everything settle down for fifteen minutes before draining the wort off into the FV.

"Empty" leaves behind about 2cm of wort and debris in the boiler (you can see the height of the take-off from the photo). It's easier than attempting to get the liquid out of the bottom 2cm and I have found a filter to be unnecessary. :thumb:

Hop Dropper.jpg

Boiler Jacket1.jpgI
 
Thanks for the replies. I pretty much have the same setup as you dutto except with the tap on the bottom of the kettle. Next brew I think I will try a few of these tips out.
 
Back
Top