Homebrew Beer Blog

Last weekend I brewed up a Belgian Pale and I got distracted during post chill. Kellie brought home some lunch, so after chilling, I yanked the chillers, gave the kettle a swirl with a spoon and let it sit for 40-50 minutes. Usually I just wait 15-20 minutes, or about how long it takes to get the pump and chillers cleaned and stored, plus the fermenter prepped. This batch was chilled down to about 48-degrees, and then sitting out in the cold garage, it was about 40 by time it got into the fermenter. Fast chilling + chilling cold = lots of cold break.

This extra time, and I imagine cold temps, really got the break to settle out. The fermenter had practically no trub in it at all. This gave a great demonstration of the diverter plate and something for me to think about. If I'm really antsy about keeping the break in the kettle, just wait longer. Seems really logical to save those light lagers for winter brewing!

Here a closeup of the diverter plate in action. It's still a little hard to see with these photos, but this pic shows how the plate is holding back a considerable amount of trub by restricting the kettle's port's draw.

These jugs are the experimental batches for my ethyl acetate experiments. I felt I needed some trub in my control fermenter, so I let the kettle drain to the end. The cone collapsed and sucked in some trub. Here's a couple shots for a comparison of very little break and roughly typical break. The first is right after the transfer and you can see the snow glob, the second is about 15-20 minutes or so after things settled out.