This is likely a silly question to a lot of you but I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons, no matter how minor, of a conical before I make the jump. I'm maybe too paranoid about oxidation, but one of the main selling points of conical manufacturers is less oxidation. I could actually argue the opposite: With the design of most conicals you're going to introduce oxygen, from the bottom, after you attach a second bulb and open the …

I am taking the opportunity to use the current situation to get brewing again. I'm only using kits at the moment, but plan to move to next stages soon. I currently have a Festival kit of Old Suffolk ale in primary and will be bottling early next week. I'd like to remove as much of the trub from the bottles as possible, and will probably use finings in the secondary before adding the priming sugar and bottling. My question is …

I've recently made a wit and used Wyeast WLP 3944. I didn't have time to make a starter and only had one package of yeast. Beersmith estimated the package to be around 66% viable given the date on the package. I noticed that the yeast took a really long time to get going and the kraüsen lasted for a few weeks. The beer turned out great, but there's a hint of banana on the nose. I've read that under pitching …

I started the fermentation for a pale ale two and a half weeks ago, dry hopped it five days in and then racked it four days ago. The trub has fallen to the bottom and I just noticed a dark layer of liquid floating on the top. I've never seen this before. Does anyone have an idea of what it is?

I'm poured the keg remnants from a pressurized ferment into a beaker to let it settle out but I'm puzzled by the layers I'm seeing. From a typical non-pressure ferment, you see (from the bottom up), trub/hops, yeast and then beer/amber liquid--like you see here: But here's what I'm seeing: I assume the foam was the result of releasing the last bit of pressure that had built up (probably a few psi) which foamed up the contents. The foam looks …

What are the benefits of completely seperating hot debris, hot break and cold break from the wort? Getting these things out of the wort and putting nothing but clean and clear wort in the fermentor has a rewarding feel to it, but achieving that nirvana can be somewhat challenging depending upon one's equipment (and patience). Does the resultant beer improve when there is no hop debris? Is the beer clearer after removing break material? Before someone considers taking this extra …

This journal is dated 1757. Pasteur connected yeast to fermentation in 1856 (discovered what yeast does) Historically bakers would take beer "waste" to make bread rise. Also there are early references of people's jobs to provide beer waste / trub to other breweries. But they didn't call it trub or yeast. The references escape me right now. The word yeast is derived from the old English words gyst or gist. I can't find when the word yeast started to be …

Since I started brewing I've ALWAYS transferred to a secondary after about 2 weeks. This was how I learned and what many recipes say to do so I always did it. And I felt that this was a fantastic way to really remove that yeast cake and trub at the bottom out of your fermenter, ultimately providing less of a risk to stir it up and have it in your bottles or keg. Many discussions here and entries in books …

I've recently been reading the labels a bit more on one of my favourite beers and have discovered that the brewers bottle condition their Pale Ale. Yet it's sold with no signs of any flocculated yeast in the purchased product. How is this possible? Is some sacrifice made to prevent the sediment? Can I do this at home?

I brewed my very first batch of extract (Brewer's Best Amber Ale) yesterday morning, and I'm still not seeing any bubbling in the airlock. I'm running through a list of things that could I could have done wrong, and one of them might have been from when I racked the wort from the (cooled) brewpot into the plastic "Ale Pale" fermenter. Yes, I confirmed the wort was chilled down to 110°F before I racked. And yes, I racked using a …

I'm a new homebrewer and I just finished racking my second batch of beer, a one-gallon Irish stout from extract. My first batch came out great, and made six delicious bottles. But, when I took the carboy out to rack the beer this time, about half of the original volume seemed to be missing - only enough for three bottles. There was also an unusually large amount of trub on the bottom, way more than I had in my first …

I just finished with my first brew and have collected the stuff left at the bottom of the primary in a well sanitized jar. 24 hours after in the refrigerator it has separated into two layers. One of them is a liquid on top and below it is a white residue. After checking multiple sites I am confused as some say that the yeast is in the liquid and others say that it is in the white stuff. Could anyone …

A good yeast sample can be retrieved, stored & reused regularly across brews. Is there a limit to the number of generations a sample can last? I've heard that after so many generations a strain can mutate into something different, is there a rule of thumb for how many uses this is? Ignoring mutation, can yeast otherwise last forever if it's properly stored & handled?

What is the difference between Trub and Lees? I've only heard about lees in regards to wine, i.e. the leftovers in the bottle. Note, Wikipedia says Lees is not only leftover grape bits, but also dead yeast. OTH, Trub is the leftovers after a homebrew boil. I've also heard the settled yeast after bottle conditioning called trub. Could the bottle conditioning 'trub' also be called 'lees'? Is there a technical difference? Is there an etymological difference? (I realize that last …

I use the BIAB method. My keggle has a side drain valve with a pickup tube going to the bottom. After the boil, I get gobs of fine material coming through my counter-flow chiller into the fermenter. It must be mostly fine crush flour leaking out of the brew bag during the mash (I use hop sacks in the boil). I bought some #60 screen (250 micron) and did a shake test on my grain to see what is in …

What is the best temperature to stop the pump in an immersion whirlpool chiller ? And what about the time to wait the trub settling vs wort temperature ? Consider both Ale and Lager.

I'm in the process of making a pretty big pumpkin beer, and just transferred to secondary. There was an incredible amount of trub -- probably 1.5 gallons out of a 5 gallon batch. I guess it was a combination of a lot of malt and a lot of pumpkin. The beer had been in primary for about 10 days and so it was pretty well settled, and I think I got all the usable beer out of it I could. …

I have read various things about saving yeast when racking, which is what I intend to do soon with one small batch of cider. I see some people just "take the cake" and I've read about a process involving the adding of room-temperature water to the remaining lees after racking, then waiting 20 minutes for the yeast to separate itself from the trub or lees. What I've been doing so far is just putting everything into a bottle that was …

On page 63 of Brewing Better Beer, Gordon Strong says, Some of the cold break material can actually help the yeast, but too much can contribute off-flavors. I can attest to both of these. A couple of times I have, pitched let the trub settle for a couple of hours racked the really clear wort to a fermenter Since I was left with a bit of trub that had a bit of nice wort in it, I fermented a bit …

For the beer that I brewed this past weekend, I finally remembered to take an Original Gravity reading. Unlike my previous last three attempts, I actually had a little more than my target 1 gallon, so I poured a little into the hydrometer. However, the wort was somewhat sediment & trub heavy at that point. Not to the point that the hydrometer was bottomed out, though. But a small layer settled down, and there was some floating stuff. Would this …