After the boil....

[Ian Rainford]

Hello everyone, first post here...

I have made heaps of brews, mainly English Ale's partial grain 18ltr boil volume, used lots of 'mini mash' kits from Dunedin Malthouse as well as some I invented :)

One thing I am not quite sure of is this, after my boil is finished, and all hops have been added in the appropriate stages (pellet hops straight in the pot, no muslin) after the wort has cooled, what do you do with all those hops that have settled to the bottom of the wort? I have been putting the whole lot in to the fermenter, is this right? of should I have been poring off the top leaving the spend hops behind, is there any difference? What is the correct way, your thoughts appreciated.

[Tony]

Hi Ian. I strain my wort, through a sieve, into my fermenter. Basically, once you have used the hops in the boil, they are spent. If you pour them into your fermenter, you create a lot of trube and sediment in the bottom of your fermenter. You also run the risk of them giving off, off flavours in your beer. By straining your wort as you pour it into the fermenter, you also oxygenate it, which will help the yeast. Also, as you pour the wort through the hops, you still get the most out of the hops as the wort filters through the hops.

[Ian Rainford]

Fantastic, Just as I thought, I actualy did this on my last batch, so I am keen to see how it turns out. Just worries me to think how better the last batches would have been if I had asked sooner ;)

[vdog]

If you've covered your pot and let it settle for a while, its relatively easy to pour the clear wort off the top and leave most of the trub (including hops) behind. It won't ruin your beer if some of this makes it to the fermenter, but it'll increase the amount of sediment you wind up with, which could cause a problem when you come to bottle if it's above the level of the tap.

Personal view: try to leave as much of it behind as you can, but don't stress too much if some gets through.

[JR]

Best to try and remove most of it if you can.
You could sanitize a big siv and pour my cooled wort through that, I have done that before without problems, however I dont know how well a siv can be sanitized because of all the tight little places bugs could hide so the method I perfer is to get a whirlpool going in the wort, which makes the hops and trub collect in the centre of the pot and syphon from the edge of the pot. When hop bits start going through the syphon stop it and discard the soup left in the pot.

[denimglen]

I let it settle for about an hour after cooling (with the lid on the pot), then siphon off about 19L of lovely clear wort, and then I get greedy and suck in about 1L of crap to hit my target volume.

[Doublehoppy]

Also, you can do this.

http://realbeernz.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-wort-recovery-protocol

I did it for the first time last brew. Filled 2 x 1 litre jugs of trub, it separated within a couple of hours so ended with another litre of clear wort

[Ian Rainford]

Thanks for all your replies, this last beer looks heaps better..