Break material in fv

[TheLastSuppa]

I've made a lager today but I had a problem with my hop stopper blocking and ended up with tons of break material in the fv. I've strained the hops out but I've got so much break in there that theres a 3 L cream coloured band on the top of the beer. Never used S23 before. I pitched at 16C, which should be OK!

Should I scoop this stuff out the top?

I know it's not always a big deal with ale but is it more of a concern for lager.

[Hoodlum]

I tend to get a lot of break material in my FV as well. It's never been a problem. I don't appear to waste much beer on syphoning it out either. My break was pretty tough and crusty, almost shielding the beer underneath. Not a problem for me.

[TheLastSuppa]

I scooped it all off this morning. It looked like half a pound of minced beef.

[Hoodlum]

I've always left it. It doesn't impart any off flavours, and adding another process (getting rid of it) is another avenue for infection, so I tend to leave it be.

[Bribie]

Assuming that the wort into the FV didn't contain hot break, and that the break you photographed is cold break then I'd also leave well alone. On an Aussie forum, I did an experiment earlier this year to look at cold break effects and did the following:

2 identical batches of a golden Queensland style lager produced side by side and the clear hot wort run off the hot break into two "no chill" poly cubes and allowed to cool overnight. Cold break had developed in both and in this case was hanging around the bottom of the cubes.
Then I poured the top half of each cube into the first FV and the rest of the wort including the turbid stuff into the second FV and fermented with same yeast (S-189) etc etc. So one FV got virtually no cold break material, the other got nearly all of it.

A month or two later I did a taste test with visitors and also a blind tasting at a club meeting and the opinion was that although both beers were extramely similar, the one with the cold break actually tasted 'fuller' and more assertive than the non-cold break one, almost as if the latter was a slightly watered down version of the other one. However on balance and also looking at colour, clarity and foaming, the conclusion was that CB wasn't anything to stress over.



Interestingly during fermentation, the 'cold break' FV ended up with a lot more cake on the bottom which would be a mix of cold break and yeast, and I would guess that the vast majority of the CB doesn't do anything, just sinks out.

[Capped]

Bribie,ta for that and the pics to back up your findings. I use a CFC chiller and so get tons of break gunk in the FV. Generally my beer ends up star-bright but y'know how it is - wondering if it could somehow be better without all the gunk going in. Shall worry no more and feel smug in the knowledge that it may actually be a good thing!

[Scotty]

I get loads of break material into my FV too. Sometimes loads, sometimes not but either way I've never had a problem with off-flavours or clarity.

[TheLastSuppa]

Thanks for the reassurance guys. In this case I've definitely got hot and cold break in the fv. My hopstopper blocked so I had to sieve the hops out and just banged everything else in to the fv. Anyway, I skimmed all the brwon stuff (protein?) off the top and now there is a white krausen with brown stuff on the top.

I've started skimming this as well because I'm sure I've read in the past that the German lager brewers call this stuff on the top 'brown yeast' and skim it off because it can make the brew very bitter, even astringent.

Just looked back through my books and found Papazian says in the Complete Joy of Homebrewing that "The krausen is topped with a very bitter and brown resinous scum ...there is an advantage to the removal of this resin before it falls back into the fermentation: There will be less of a bitter 'bite' to your beer ...'fusel oils' are also removed. Fusel oils are a by-product of fermentation and contribute to what are often referred to as "beer headaches." If the removal of hop resins during the kraeusen stage can be done under sanitary conditions then it is advised to do so."