Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

I have another homebrew.

More seriously, I wonder if this thread should be in the all grain section.

I only ever noticed trub after I started mashing.  Currently, my wort boils for about 1.5-2.5 hours depending on the OG of the batch (more OG = more sparge wort = longer wait to boil down).  I cool 5 gallons in 15-20 minutes with a 50' copper immersion chiller.  At first I poured all of the trub into the fermenter because I didn't know any better.  Now, I try to avoid pouring as much trub from the kettle into the fermenter as possible, visually.  I am sure that some gets in anyway.  I haven't really noticed a significant difference in the quality of the beer, but given my quick perusal of the above I should mention that I exclusively brew with White Labs Belgian Ale strains (depends on the mood which specific strain).  I don't use Irish moss or any other fancy clarifying stuff.  I'm in the camp that my beer should require minimal work.  It does not bother me to see cloudy beer, as long as it's delicious.  Pub glasses in the old days were pewter or porcelain.  I've heard that in sketchy, pubs, they were pewter with a glass bottom, so you could be sure no one was trying to mug you while you took a swig!  Clear beer is a modern convention, in my opinion.  Then again, I didn't much fancy clear pepsi over dark pepsi either as a kid.  I liked good ol dark root beer or better yet, birch beer.

My beer usually sits in the primary for 2-4 weeks before racking to a keg.  Usually 4 weeks is when I've been out partying for the intervening weeks, meeting girls, visiting our of towners, working too much, etc.  I start to become irrational at 4 weeks.  "uh, I can't come in this morning, I'll be sick til noon..."  When I rack, I hold the racking cane and watch the brew flowing out of the fermenter for clarity, to minimize the crud that is transfered.  After fermentation, I try not to cry too much into the beer resting atop the yeast/gunk that I know I'll have to sacrifice to the Gods of Beer.  It usually takes a couple months in the keg fridge after to arrive at what I consider ideal flavor.  Perhaps my wanton approach to trub influences the time to "optimal beer".  Perhaps not.

When I was in Scotland, I would walk out of pubs that either had no casks or casks I'd tried.  Having tried most of what was available on cask in Edinburgh, I was struck by the similarity of most cask ales to my homebrew in terms of mouthfeel.  Perhaps it has something to do with minimal processing and trub.

I believe I read somewhere that some folks use a sanitized spoon to stir up a good vortex in the cooled wort before they rack from the kettle to the fermenter.  The report said that the vortex induces the trub to form a conical pyramid in the center of the boil kettle, and then one can use a sanitized racking cane to xfer the wort to the fermenter sans trub by racking from the edge of the boil kettle.  I'll worry about that when people stop liking my beer.

clearly, I write too much, since I'm usually time out while posting...  My apologies to the admins.

i also brew all grain however i use a counter flow chiller so all of the cold break lands in my carboy (and with some brews there is more than others) I do try to avoid the hot break in the bottom on the brew kettle this is sometimes hard as i have to balance the hot kettle on a stand for trasfer (i do not have a pump for my chiller yet). i just try to make sure i transfer it to a keg after primary fermintation or to another carboy and i have not experenced any ill effects to this point.

I've taken to not worrying about the trub and letting it ride all the way to the bottom of the fermenter for the full ferment. With my ales I've had great results and clean brew assuming you cold crash your beer and rack it off the trub within 3 weeks or so...