Unlike an immersion chiller which leaves the cold break in the boil kettle, does the cold break from a counterflow chiller end up in the fermenter? Does anyone add a filter or screen between the c.f. chiller and the fermenter to reduce what is going in?
You could just pour through a sanitized collender or sieve as the beer enters the fermenter. This is how a lot of brewers remove hop mater and protein from their beer if they don't use a false bottom. You'll double up on your time because you're already starting to aerate too.
I've heard of people draining the kettle into a prefermentation vessel, letting the cold break settle, and siphoning off the trub free wort into a primary fermentation vessel. Sounds like a lot of work though. I'm a false bottom kind of guy. Will a colander/strainer catch the cold break?
It is a good practice to whirlpool your wort after boiling is over , during about 10 minutes then let wort rest for another 10 minutes before starting to drain to your CFC.This way you will keep a cake of hot break under the drain orifice of the kettle but some trub will finally end up in your fermenter though, it is not important(in fact is a good thing for yeast) when this trub is not too much(more than 3 inches at the bottom of fermenter).I think there ´s no need to use any kind of filtration to avoid this qty. of trub.
I use a CFC in conjunction with a Boilermaker kettle. The dip tube is positioned near the wall of the kettle so with a whirlpool a great deal of break material is avoided (along with ~1C wort). Some of it does carry over but I haven't noticed any problems that it causes, most all of my beers clear up very well; the break will settle to the bottom with the rest of the trub.
I'm curious...and not to detail the thread, but why is it do important to filter out cold break material? I use a CFC in combination with whirlfloc in most batches I make. I've never encountered off-flavors from cold break and wonder why so many people are avid about avoiding it in their fermentor
Some believe that there's a real benefit to reducing the amount of protein and break material in the fermenter because the beer is supposedly cleaner without it. I use a CFC into an IC with an ice bath - The hot break stays in the kettle, but cold break? pfft.. come on in!
