How long do you Whirlpool?

[Bainbridge]

So just for kicks today we followed sbradt's advice above and used our paddle to stir up a whirlpool on a 10bbl batch of our IPA. Skipped the pump and whirlpool inlet entirely. Five minutes or so of stirring and it was spinning happily, and we stirred it a little more five minutes later. 30 minutes start to finish and we started knocking out. Honestly the trub pile was as good as normal, maybe a little fluffier and clumpier. So yep, seemed to work just fine.

Only issue is that our kettle has a little whirlpool gate, a curved piece of steel that sticks up about 4" from the bottom and is maybe two feet long. The idea is that it blocks the trub pile from sliding toward the outlet. Works great on our pale, kolsch, brown, etc.. But on our IPAs and anything big, the trub pile just totally overwhelms it and just flows over the top and around the sides. Ah to have a kettle that was about two feet wider... Fortunately we tend to use our hopback on those beers so the trub hits several pounds of hops and a mesh bag before the heat-x. But we still have an irritating amount of trub loss to our final volume.

Anyone got a bright ideas on making the pile more compact, or somehow straining out the trub a little better?

[Matt Dog]

It may be that the 15-20 minute WP times come from people that worked in a brewery w a seperate WP. When I did it took about 15-20 minutes to KO from kettle to WP. Now that I am WPing in a kettle I to only go a few minutes w a VFD pump assisting w a paddle and rest 10-15minutes.

[Sauce]

You want to whirlpool for as short a time as possible. All you care about is whirpool speed, so once the pool is not speeding up anymore, STOP. Whirlpooling any time beyond that has only downside and zero benefit. All you would be doing is chopping up the larger clumps of trub (like someone else said) and making it harder for them to fall out. As for whirlpooling throughout the boil....well it certainly has some entertainment value

Ok....so, Dfalken and I have told ya why we dont wirlpool for very long, So I'm interested to hear from those that wirlpools for 10,20,30 minutes.......why do you do it for that long?

Seriously....I certainly dont know everything, maybe I'm missing something or is it a case of "thats just how we always did it"?

[dfalken]

You want to whirlpool for as short a time as possible. All you care about is whirpool speed, so once the pool is not speeding up anymore, STOP. Whirlpooling any time beyond that has only downside and zero benefit. All you would be doing is chopping up the larger clumps of trub (like someone else said) and making it harder for them to fall out. As for whirlpooling throughout the boil....well it certainly has some entertainment value

[Gunrunner]

Same as most above

We run whirlpool for about 8 to 10 minutes after we turn burner off (direct fire too), just enough to get things spinning and then we let it rest till the spinning stops about ten minutes and then kncokout.

[TPBC]

Our system is pretty small (3BBL), but all I need to do is 5-6 solid swirls with mash paddle at the end of boil and we get a nice hop mountain on the bottom of the tank and no burning at all on our direct fire kettle.

[Sauce]

Call me crazy (go ahead its ok), but I think wirlpooling for anymore than 5 minutes is pointless . My thoughts are that once you reach terminal volocity whats the point of continuing pumping and shearing up all those nice big flakes of hot break? I let it rest for a minimum 20 mins after wilrpooling.

We get a decent trub pile, certainly helps the aroma profile on our late hopped beers.......


.....Am I the lone voice in the wilderness on this? Go ahead, change my mind if you think I'm off the mark on this!

[Bainbridge]

Yep, we've been playing around with it a bit but currently we start the whirlpool at the end of the boil and help it get started with a paddle, go 15 minutes, then a 20 minute rest. On low hop beers I can pull almost all the available clear wort off it. 10bbl, direct fire.

[kugeman]

Yeah, when I worked on a direct fire, I'd whirlpool about 10 minutes after boil stop (for 5 minutes), then rest 20 minutes and knock out. I would think that whirlpooling during boiling would reek havoc on your kettle pump seals...

[steved]

I've brewed on direct fire kettles for years and I've never had hops, trub, etc. burn on the bottom. I turn on the whirlpool when I turn the burner off. Whirlpool for 10 minutes, turn off the pump, and let it rest for another 10 minutes, then knockout.

[BuiltToLast]

It has been tradition where I brew to run the whirlpool (built into kettle) from the time we set taps until 15 minuted after boil, so about 3.25 hours. They have been doing it like this for 25 years, and I've done it for the last 7 without questioning it. The theory I've been told is that if you didn't run it, the wort/hops/trub would burn to the bottom because its direct fire. It seems like we're beating up the wort more then we have to, especally during the first 45 minutes or so of filling the kettle when the wort is sloshing around rather violently. The beer isn't bad but I would say there's definitely room for improvement. Anyone have suggestions?