Beer Forum

So I don' know exactly hoe to explain this and I don't really think it's bad... but in the pictures below you can see that my wort after chilling and before pitching the east has a TON of what seems to be protein floating in suspension. After about 40 minutes it all settled out to the bottom of the fermenter, then once the yeast started kicking into high gear it basically ate all of this crud... Has anyone seen this happen in their brewing?






Is this just what cold break normally looks like?

Thanks for the input!

SwiftRiver wrote:So I don' know exactly hoe to explain this and I don't really think it's bad... but in the pictures below you can see that my wort after chilling and before pitching the east has a TON of what seems to be protein floating in suspension. After about 40 minutes it all settled out to the bottom of the fermenter, then once the yeast started kicking into high gear it basically ate all of this crud... Has anyone seen this happen in their brewing?







Is this just what cold break normally looks like?

Thanks for the input!

Yep, that's coldbreak

SwiftRiver wrote:Yep, that's coldbreak

Definitely the coagulated protein and whatnot from a strong cold break. You usually don't want a whole lot of it in the fermenter but it's not a problem for a strong ferment.

Yeah, feel free to rack the wort off that if it hasn't started vigorous 0fermentation.

I just got a wort chiller so have just started experiencing cold break myself, but how important is the removal when brewing ales? Jamil makes the distinction in BCS saying that the preferred method for making lagers is different in that they should be chilled and racked off the cold break. I assumed he meant different from ales, but maybe he meant different from another lagering technique. I also know that ales are better at covering diacetyl flavors; some styles even allow small amounts. So...thoughts? Do most of you rack off from cold break for ales?

I try to keep it out, but it's really not that big of a deal. I mostly use conicals now so I'll dump it from those, but in the past I've done the rack it into a carboy & rack off the settled trub method. Now if it's going into a carboy & I really don't feel like cleaning an extra one, I'll just leave it. You really need a lot of it in there to make any major flavor impact to your beer.

Anyone using a counterflow or plate chiller that isn't going into conicals and dumping the break is likely going to be fermenting on top of all this.

Thanks very much for the responses. This was a Scotch Ale that I brewed about a month ago. I pitched on top of all that cold break and the yeast really went to town on it, so for this batch I don't think any ill effects came about from it, but in the future it may be good to rack off of this and leave it behind. The first two batches I brewed prior to this one didn't really show any visible cold break in the carboy.

My theory is that, because for this beer I did a 90 min boil and used Irish Moss, that those two factors played into the reason for so much cold break. Any input on that? Or do people usually see this much cold break produced in their beers?

Thanks!