Transferring wort from Kettle to Fermentor - to siphon or not to siphon?

[Nztayls]

Hi all,

I am currently brewing in the kitchen (much to my wife's consternation). I have a good quality heavy stainless kettle with a ball-valve on the bottom. This works on my induction hob, which has enough grunt to boil 30 litres with relative ease.

My current method has me cooling the wort with an immersion chiller, creating a whirlpool by stirring rapidly, and then leaving for about thirty minutes. I have then been siphoning off into the fermentor, leaving most of the grub behind where it has formed in a nice cone in the middle. So basically I am not using the valve on the bottom at all.

My question is, is this necessary? Am I being too anal here, and should I just drain the kettle into the fermentor using the ball valve, which as it is at the bottom of the pot I am picking it will suck most the trub out with the wort. Interested in thoughts on this from people with more idea on what they are doing than I have!

Cheers!

[Paul Fraser]

I usually cool it with an immersion chiller then leave it 20mins or so while i get the yeast all ready. I then tip the pot to slowly pour through a sanitised seive straight into the fermenter. I stop once the trub gets a bit much and i've achieved my volumes. This aerates the wort, saves time and i still get good clear beer.

[Ralph]

I generally find a bit of trub going into the fermentor does not cause problems with the clarity of the finished beer, but you probably don't want to overload the fermentor with too much of it.

Use which ever method is easier for you and has less likelyhood of contamination.

[Peter Smith]

I do this even with 46L batches but leave for 60 mins after removing wort chiller.   "consternation"  mate i would get a clip round ears if using wort chiller inside....    she is a keeper.

still don't use tap at bottom of kettle, prefer to syphon.    you will have different results depending on gain type re effectiveness of kopafloc etc