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Wort/Beer loss at each transfer

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  • Wort/Beer loss at each transfer

    Lets talk about a theoretical IPA that is being brewed in 20bbl batches. No hop extracts being used and 25lbs of hops being added at some point in the kettle/whirl and a 1lb/bbl dry hop.

    At the end of the boil you have 20bbl of wort ready to move to fermenter.

    How much would you expect to make it into the fermenter?

    Into the brite?

    Into the keg?



    Our yields are lower than I am expecting (10-11bbl into kegs from a 20bbl batch) and if our demand/volume takes off in the future, it will matter a lot more than it does now where we are doing 90% of our volume through a high margin tap room.


    Brian

  • #2
    Most of that is going to depend on your system and how you are running things moving things etc. That being said your number sounds very very low, even for an IPA with a fair bit of hops.

    On a 10 bbl system to get 10 bbl of IPA in kegs I usually need to have about 13 in the kettle at the end of the boil.

    Without having any information on your system or process its very hard to know why you're loosing so much. I would expect to loose a barrel or two at the end of the boil in Trub etc. Lose say 1 bbl to yeast, probably 1 more during racking to brite. And that's about it.
    Best advice I can give you is to visit some breweries in your area and try to shadow them throughout every step in the process - my guess is you're having excess losses in several places.
    Manuel

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    • #3
      I've not ever run a big system, but losing 50% seems like an awful lot. We lose 5-10% from ferm to BBT, and even less from BBT to keg, provided we've settled or filtered appropriately.

      There's a finite number of places got can leave wort or beer behind: your MT, BK, whirlpool, on top of settled yeast/trub in the bottom of your conical or BBT, in hoses, or in foam at your taps.

      If your OG's and volumes are right after your boil, then my guess (from using our little system) would be on top of your trub pile in your ferms. Unless you have 100' 4" hoses, it's not there. Are you using a racking arm on your ferms and BBT, with a sight glass on it and rotating until you just get some schlock and then rotate back a couple degrees??

      Now, this is a very dumb question, but there's no leaks?? How about the possibility of a check valve or pump priming valve failing somewhere and some of your tasty IPA ending up in the drain??....don't ask me how I know this can happen.

      Lastly - do you drink while kegging? Maybe you're pouring a few more than you know?? Hahahah.

      -J.
      Jeremy Reed
      Co-Founder and President, assistant brewer, amateur electrician, plumber, welder, refrigeration tech, and intermediately swell fella
      The North of 48 Brewing Company
      Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

      www.no48.ca

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      • #4
        Here are our numbers -- for our IPA, on a 7bbl system, we get about 8.25 bbl or so post boil. I do not measure how much makes it into the FV, but there is a trub pile after WP that is so broad that there has to be at least 1, maybe 1.5 bbls left in the BK. After yeast harvest & DH, I net about 5.5-6 bbl in the BT. We add about 12 lbs in the WP and another 12 lbs for DH. So that pretty much is the culprit for the beer suck up. Looks like we lose about 30% from end-of-boil to BT. On your system, assuming your post boil is in the 23-24 bbl range, you'd brite with about 16.4 bbls, so something is def soaking it up. What is your post-boil vol?

        dave
        Dave Cowie
        Three Forks Bakery & Brewing Company
        Nevada City, CA

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        • #5
          Like everyone else here has said, it really comes down to your system design. I brew on two systems, a 3BBL and a 15BBL. For the 15BBL, we finish with 16.5BBL wort in the kettle, just under 16BBL in the fermentor, and about 15BBL in the brite, for a loss of about 11%. For the 3BBL, we finish with 3.5BBL wort in the kettle, the same in the whirlpool, 3.2BBL into the fermentor, and about 2.8BBL in the brite, for a loss of about 20%. I attribute the larger loss on the 3BBL primarily to poor racking arm design in the fermentors. They are too short, which leaves more finished beer behind in the cone than I'd like. Also, I wish our whirlpool was wider, or the dish bottom a bit deeper, because many of our beers leave enough trub in there that even with kettle fining, we have to turn off our runoff sooner than expected as it starts to wash into the outlet. A standpipe or other hop block in the whirlpool would also let us run out further before turning off the pump. The 15BBL system has none of these problems, and loss is primarily due to trub and hops holding on to liquid, not due to equipment geometry.

          For both of our systems, because we fine in the fermentor, we end up with very little sediment in the bottom of the brite. Typically, I need to run only a gallon or two before it runs clear. And that's with a center bottom outlet. If the racking port in the brite is higher, you'll lose a lot more. A standpipe in the brite can help if you end up with a lot of sediment in there. You'll keg off clear beer right up until the liquid level hits the standpipe, rather than the sediment sloughing into the bottom port three kegs from empty. But we saw a fraction of the sediment once we started fining in earnest. Fining is your friend.

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          • #6
            18-25% is normal for our heavily hopped beers. You are definitely experiencing excessive loss. Biggest points of loss are from the dry hop and the kettle additions. Having a solid whirlpool regime is crucial, and also the kettle design. A dish bottom is better than a sloped bottom. In transferring from FV to BBT an adjustable racking arm is very important so you can draw down to the top of the hop pile.

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            • #7
              From post boil volume to keg we lose 20-25% for our IPA.
              Prost!
              Eric Brandjes
              Cole Street Brewery
              Enumclaw, WA

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              • #8
                We lose about 15% from post boil to brite in our session IPA, which has about 3#/BBL of total hops in the recipe. We lose as much as 25% on some of our DIPAs, which may have as much as 5.5#/BBL total hops. 15BBL brewhouse, 15 and 30BBL fermenters.

                Losing close to 50% is way excessive, especially since you are only at about 2.2#/BBL of hops. How steep are the cones on your fermenters? If they have less than a 60 degree slope, that could be an issue, preventing the hops from compacting effectively before you transfer. Also, how cold and for how long are you crashing before transfer? A better cold crash could help a lot. I usually let our session IPA rest cold for three days at the end of dry hopping before transfer, but occasionally have let it sit for closer to a week at that temp due to having something else occupying the brite, and on those occasions its not unusual for our yield to go up by as much as a full BBL, so about a 3% increase over an already acceptable 85% yield.
                Last edited by nickfl; 01-19-2017, 03:18 PM.

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