I wonder what you all think about this. After cooling down my boil this weekend, as I was running to the fermenter, the run-off slowed to a painfully slow rate - maybe 10cc / min. I sloshed the pail around a bit and saw that the hop filter had come off and a bunch of hops had plugged the valve. I think I must have dislodged the filter with the immersion coil, and the run-off stopped when the liquid head lowered past a certain point.
From my extract days, I have a funnel with a fairly fine piece of mesh sieve (used for removing the hops from my late hopping of extracts), so I gave it a quick wash-up with sanitiser and then poured a kettle full of boiling water through it, then poured the cooled wort into the fermenter through the funnel.
My concern is that the filter is not really fine enough to stop the small stuff that a good bed of hops might filter. Also, some stuff would get around the mesh, which is not a tight fit in the funnel (pretty good, but it's a bit warped).
I'm not terribly worried - it's a porter, so probably pretty forgiving of faults. And I plan to rack to secondary on this one and let it ferment out for another 3 weeks, so I'll have two passes at removing anything that's not in suspension. I also thought about filtering again as I rack to secondary, but I don't think I'll do that as I'd rather not get the new beer all aerated and risk infection.
On the plus side, the wort should be well aerated, and I probably recovered about an extra litre of liquid from the boiler relative to most brews.
Lost my filter
Well, obviously you'll have let some hot trub go through into the fermenter.
Usually this affects the clarity of the brew, but since you're making a porter, you should be OK from that point of view.
It may possibly affect the keeping properties of the beer, since the yeast will trap trub (try saying that after 6 pints!
) which may lead to autolysis.
Just drink it fast.
Usually this affects the clarity of the brew, but since you're making a porter, you should be OK from that point of view.
It may possibly affect the keeping properties of the beer, since the yeast will trap trub (try saying that after 6 pints!
) which may lead to autolysis.Just drink it fast.
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sagwalla
No, Daft, I don't have the boiler config you mentioned. It's a punched piece of copper tubing, crimped at the end. I reckon I could use a jubilee clip to hold it in place (presently only inserted into a piece of thick gauge plastic tubing. I think one of the problems is that as the boiler gets hot, the tube grows more flexible. I can't be sure if I lost the tube during the boil or at the cooldown.
I hadn't thought to skim the scum off the krausen. That's a good idea, although I'm already two days into the ferment and I'm away overnight tonight. I'll have a look at what's up there tomorrow night - I was planning to rack to secondary on Thursday, so I might get a bit of a skim done then. Cheers!
I hadn't thought to skim the scum off the krausen. That's a good idea, although I'm already two days into the ferment and I'm away overnight tonight. I'll have a look at what's up there tomorrow night - I was planning to rack to secondary on Thursday, so I might get a bit of a skim done then. Cheers!
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sagwalla
I racked my porter to secondary this weekend and can report that it tastes like porter. So, no problems with the fermentation I can see (I am a bit nervous about the secondary fermentation). By racking, I think I've left behind most of the hot trub that got into the fermenter (it was definitely there, and there were some hop seeds stuck at the top extent of the krausen mung line).