So all preferences aside does it really matter if you strain all of the trub from your boil kettle? ive done it both ways, with and without straining and don't see too much of a difference. any scientific reason on why the trub needs to be strained?
I don’t have any ‘science’ here but below is what John Palmer states in his online book How to Brew: “There will be a considerable amount of hot break, cold break and hops in the bottom of the boiling pot after cooling. It is a good idea to remove the hot break (or the break in general) from the wort before fermenting. The hot break consists of various proteins and fatty acids which can cause off-flavors, although a moderate amount of hot break can go unnoticed in most beers. The cold break is not considered to be much of a problem, in fact a small amount of cold break in the fermenter is good because it can provide the yeast with needed nutrients. The hops do not matter at all except that they take up room. In general however, removal of most of the break, either by careful pouring from the pot or by racking to another fermenter, is necessary to achieve the cleanest tasting beer. If you are trying to make a very pale beer such as Pilsener style lager, the removal of most of the hot and cold break can make a significant difference.” FWIW I do not take any steps to remove trub from my wort into the fermentor and I have not experienced any issues. Maybe this blog which documents an experiment is of interest to you: http://brulosophy.com/2014/06/02/the-great-trub-exbeeriment-results-are-in/ Cheers!
Like @JackHorzempa, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. I whirlpool, and siphon from the side, and leave a little wort/trub in the pot. Maybe that removes 50% or more of the trub...maybe not. I'm not gonna filter it, and the brew day is already long enough as it is. And...the brulosophy website is truly awesome if you are ever worried you did something in a less-than-optimal way. Almost every experiment he's done (see exbeeriments) shows little or no difference between best practices and not-so-best practices. Takes the pressure off...
Since reading that brulosophy experiment on trub a while back I no longer take measures to get the clearest wort to the fermenter. YMMV.
As I posted above: "FWIW I do not take any steps to remove trub from my wort into the fermentor and I have not experienced any issues." Cheers!
Probably doesn't matter much either way, but I usually try to remove as much trub as possible. I usually do a whirlpool, then siphon from the brew kettle into a large hop strainer at the bottom of the fermentation bucket. I raise the strainer once the level gets close to the top of the hop strainer. This way I remove all but the very finest trub particles. This cuts down on the boil volume required (I recover a lot of the wort that would have been tossed away with the trub), and removes maybe 95% of the trub.
Be aware that the method they use to determine if a difference has been detected never proves that there's no difference. It can only prove (to a certain level of confidence) that there is a difference, or it can be inconclusive as to whether there's a difference. Even results that would indicate purely random choices don't mean there's no difference, because the fact that a particular group doesn't statistically detect a difference doesn't mean that a different group (perhaps more sophisticated tasters or people more sensitive to a particular characteristic) would not. I would also add that even if a result could somehow prove unequivocally that there's "no difference" between a given pair of processes/ingredients/whatever, that still wouldn't necessarily mean that combinations of two or more "no difference" practices would not add up to a detectable difference. In other words, it's possible that "the little things add up," which I think some of us accept as almost an axiom in brewing. It's analogous to Stacked Tolerances in engineering.
The Brulosophy experiments (and especially the "results") remind me of the Chris Elliott experiments on David Letterman:
I have mixed feelings about the Brulosophy approach. For one thing, as far as I can tell there are very few (if any) true replication attempts. I realize replication (or inability to replicate) is not nearly as fun as doing a new experiment, but the very low sample sizes mean that the results are rarely more than suggestive. Also, consider this thought experiment. I invent a device that is meant to save money on hops. You attach the device to your kettle, and 50% of the time it will drop in Columbus/Simcoe/Centennial at appropriate points in the boil. The other 50% of the time will drop in what only appear to be American hops, but are in fact Brussels sprouts. This is where the cost savings come in: Brussels sprouts are far cheaper than hops, and so half the time when you reload the device, you save a bundle. I call my device the Randomizer. Brulosophy decides to test my claims that the Randomizer saves a lot of money on hops without compromising the quality of the beer. To perform the experiment, a batch is split two ways. In one kettle, Brulosophy simply adds Columbus/Simcoe/Centennial in the traditional fashion. The other kettle gets the Randomizer treatment. After the beer has fermented, Brulosophy conducts a triangular taste test, and only 8/25 beer enthusiasts are able to pick out the beer that is different. This is consistent with random chance. The counter-intuitive result: It doesn't matter whether you use American hops or the Randomizer. Pretty soon the Randomizer is available in every halfway decent LHBS, since the "myth" that it will ruin your beer has been "debunked." I think you see my point. Quite often, bad brewing practices create only a risk of a bad outcome. If the risk is realized, then it may be apparent to most people who taste the beer. But if the risk isn't realized, then it may appear that there is no downside to the brewing practice under consideration. But of course there is a downside: the downside is the risk that your beer will suffer. Often, Brulosophy merely proves that a certain practice won't definitely ruin your beer. Well, smoking won't definitely give you cancer, but most people would still advise against it. All of that said, I certainly think controlled experiments are valuable, and the conventional wisdom deserves to be questioned and tested. And the results certainly count for something. I just think people shouldn't exaggerate the rigor of the science that is being done. The sample sizes are small and the experiments are not tested by replication studies. As for trub, in addition to the Brulosophy experiment, there is the testimony of lots and lots of people who have tolerated trub in the fermenter for years with no obvious consequences. So personally I am pretty relaxed about trub.
