Skip the Vorlauf ?

I agree with this. Add up a bunch of the wrong "it doesn't seem to make any difference" choices and the tolerances can stack.

 

I used to collect my runnings through my hop spider in lieu of vorlaufing, but now I'm doing RIMS so that covers it. What I will say is that the amount of grain particulate that I used to collect in the hop spider could sometimes be substantial and (anecdotally) I would not want it in my boil kettle for 60+ minutes.

 

I mash in a rectangular cooler with a SS braid. I can never get the runoff to be completely free of very small particles, but there is a substantial difference after I run off the first pint. I would never skip that first recirculation, but going forward, i will probably stop after that one or maybe a second.

 

I do, and I'm not sure why. My beer isn't crazy clear anyways. I have done Irish moss for my last two batches (one was a IIPA, so I'm not sure why . . . )

 

A commercial brewer skipping a vorlauf and a homebrewer doing so might be 2 different things...if I'm in that big of a hurry, I'd just shorten the mash/sparge by 2 minutes...besides "vorlauf" sounds cool : )

 

when I didn't have pumps my vorlauf was half hearted. Now I just recirc at mash out until things clear up. Why leave one more thing to chance?