First Timer... Cold Break?

[Heycock]

Hi, my first batch of beer is bubbling strongly and all went well along the way. Except... I didn't remove the cold break (the wort was cooled rapidly and the break was clearly seen) or hop pellets from the wort. I realized I didn't have anything to strain with but at that point there was nothing to do. How will this affect my beer? Is there anything I should do now? Is there something special I should do in the future other than straining? What should I use to strain? I've read about letting the sediment fall and then siphoning the wort off of the sediment. I didn't do this because I'd never siphoned before and didn't want to take the time to learn while my wort sat in the open. Other than that it is fermenting strongly. All help is appreciated.

[Tweek]

I am not quite following you. How did you transfer to your fermenter? and at what temperature etc? give us some details and we can give ya some advice.

[Heycock]

Hey, sorry... It was clear in my head. I cooled the wort in the boiling pot in a sink with ice down to about 110

[Heycock]

Sorry, again, my computer just froze and for some reason what I was typing got posted.... Anyway. As for details. I cooled to wort to about 110 F in a sink with ice and poured that into my primary fermenter which already contained some cool water so the final temperature was around 78 F. I then filled the bucket up to 5 gallons and pitched my yeast. Everything is going fine now. But, the mistake (I believe) I made was not filtering out the cold break proteins or hops which I poured into the primary (I did not siphon it in). My question is, will the cold break proteins hurt the fermentation process or the end product? Should I have filtered them or siphoned off the wort from them?

[Tweek]

hmm still not sure if I have it but here is what I am picturing

You finished boiling your wort then through ice into your brew bucket. you waited for it to get to 110 then dumped the contents of the pot into your fermenter, which for this to be practical I am going to assume is a bucket.

So what you ended up with was 110 degree wort with all the hop trub in your bucket. Hopefully at this point you put the lid on and waited for it to cool down to 75 or so before pitching your yeast. Lets assume you did. All of the trub will settle out of the beer and collect at the bottom of your fermenter. you will need to syphon this brew to a clean container to finish out ferment after the high krausen dies down (this is the head that the ferment kicks up) Not doing so will probabally lead to off flavors due to the volume of trub that I would think you have in your fermenter. You could try leaving ti there is always a chance that you will luck out and it will be fine, and no that is not sarcasm, I have left some pretty questionable stuff due to my laziness and it ended up good, I have also ended up with bad beer for the same.

If you did not wait until it cooled to the 70s before you pitched your yeast you have a whole diferent set of problems. My suggestion at that point would be that you get new yeast transfer your brew to a new clean container leaving the trub behind and pithc the new yeast. Then hope for the best.

If I did not understand let me know what I got wrong and ill try again.

Cheers

[Heycock]

That helped...

No, I didn't put ice into the wort, and I pitched the yeast at 78 degrees. I followed someone's advice by cooling the the wort (about 2 gallons after the boil) by putting the pot in the sink (the sink had the ice and water in it) When it was 110 degrees I poured it into my primary fermenter which contained 2 gallons of cool water. When the 110 degree wort was poured into the cool water the final temperature was less than 80 degrees. The volume was then finished off up to 5 gallons.

But what do I do about the trub in future brews? Do I siphon the wort from the pot into the fermenter, leaving the trub behind? Do I filter it?

Thanks for your help!

[Tweek]

yeah you will need to syphon or filter. You can get an auto syphon from your local brewshop not sure how much they are but I believe they are fairly cheap. The alternative of a filter I would think would be much more expensive to do correctly.

[paul84043]

I would change your cooling method as well, a wort chiller works absolute wonders, and is extremely easy to use and keep clean.

I usually cool mine down to roughly 75, then add pre boiled, pre cooled (to room temp) water.
I drain through both a standard mesh collander which has been sanitized, and one of those 12" brewing funnels with the fine screen built in.
It's a bit time intensive to coax it all through the strainers, but worth it I think.

Some people that I know leave everything in thier wort, they like the extra hoppiness, but I have heard that you really want to separate out the cold and hot break. It's pretty amazing how much stuff you get out.

Another suggestion would be to use grain bags for your hop additions. They make straining the stuff out MUCH easier because you don't have to deal with hop residue as well.

Your beer will be fine. You will want to transfer when the Kreusen (foaming) falls and the bubbling drops to more than 30 seconds or so between bubbles. It should take about a week, More with higher gravity beers.

The autosiphon is a must for siphoning. It makes it unbelievably easy.

[batkins]

I think you can get an autosiphon for about 10 bucks.

[b3s]

yeah, an autosiphon is around 10 or 11 bucks USD. worth every damn penny, too!

the wort chiller is definitely a great purchase, too. just used mine this weekend. can't beat it with a stick. before that i used to boil water and put it into sanitized containers and then freeze it. after boiling the wort i'd put this ice in directly. nothing wrong with it...except it still took forever to cool the stuff. after doing that twice i splurged on the wort chiller :)

[toneyc]

No worries! I don't siphon or filter my wort, either. I just pour it directly into the primary bucket after it cools down.

I am starting to see some interesting differences here that really illustrate how hard it is to mess up a batch of beer. The one batch of beer that I messed up, my second, was because I left it in a cold house over Christmas holidays and then bottled it when I got back. It just never fermented. All the other things that I've done have turned out ok, like leaving the beer in the primary fermenter for a month then kegging it, using ice *in* the wort to chill it, and not filtering or siphoning the wort off the trub in the boil pot, have all turned out fine. As long as things are clean and sanitary, it is hard to mess up a batch of beer.

:) Toney.

[BluesHarp]

If I use whole hops, I strain out as much as possible, put it in the strainer, and pour the wort through it. The hop "petals" do a good job of filtering out what you don't want, and the wort helps to get any remaining hoppy goodness out of the hops. The only drawback is that it takes awhile to strain through.

PS - Glad to hear you didn't put ice in the wort...theres no telling what might be in there!

[yonkersbrewer]

Amen, to what Toneyc said.

The more I read here and look at my own (limited) experience as a brewer the more I am convinced that the way to become a confident brewer is to be equiped with the least "stuff" and just bumble through a couple of batches. Frankly, the only thing that makes a real difference is sanitation and temperature. If you keep everything clean and sanitized and maintain the correct temperature most everything will come out right most of the time.

All that we are doing is making barley soup and letting it ferment. It was done for millenia without anything but a pot and a fire!

[paul84043]

I had to toss my first batch -0- botched beer last night. I finally concluded that it had an infection. It had a tart flavor like unsweetened grapefruit juice that just kept getting stronger. The only thing I did different was use "purified" water from the store. That was the first batch I had done that on, and the last. From now on, it's boil my own and if I'm in a hurry, cool it with the wort chiller.

It sucks, all that time, energy and money right down the drain.

It's okay, I'm ordering another of the exact same thing and this one is going to come out right.

I also tasted my first porter last night. Very interesting. It almost had a sulphury taste. Could that be due to a very long lag time before fermentation kicked off? And do you think it will age away?
This one took nearly two days to start. I don't know why. I'm doing starters on everything from now on.

[S.F.B.]

Paul, hard to say if it will age out. The lag time before the start of the ferment is definitely a concern. The sooner you can get it going the better.

[Tweek]

Paul, it could have been from a longer lag time. A lot can happen during that period. Next time though instead of tossing the whole batch stick it in a keg or bottles and let it condition for a few. I have had some off flavors just work itself out that way. I mean you were on your way to the store to buy that extra keg anyways right? :D

[paul84043]

I really tried to give this batch the benefit of the doubt, but the off flavor was more than just a flavor and the smell could knock you on your butt.
It was just like unsweetened grapefruit juice. That's the best I can describe it.
It had sat in the primary for almost a month and was just getting worse.

I thought about putting it into an extra carboy, or even bottling it and waiting, but I didn't want to waste any more time on a dead brew. That, and I was actually beginning to be afraid of what it would turn into....