Trub from running beer

[adamOVD]

I recently ran some ipa from the local brewery. It was fined and looks pretty clear, but wasn't filtered. I was pretty shocked how much trub was in the still after the run. From about 100 gallons there was maybe a total of a football sized chunk. It mostly looks like long strands of protein. The proteins seem seems to work it's way up the column while I'm running tails as well. I just have perforated plates in my column. I'm a little worried about then getting clogged somewhere. Anyone else have experience with this?

[bluefish_dist]

I ran some hopped beer and it almost completely plugged my seive plates.  I think it was the hopps that made a algee looking slime that coated the bottom plate.  Never again.  

[adamOVD]

Here's a pic. Looks more like protein than hops. Same stuff is always at the bottom of the kettle mixed with your hops after boiling beer, they call it the trub pile, or the hot break. Think it has something to do with hops making proteins precipitate out of the beer. I should know more about it as a former brewer.

I do think I'm getting some hop particles puking up into the final spirit though. I was going to try to filter them out before I barrel.

[Still_Holler]

I had same thing when I ran IPA, it didn't get up into the column, but plugged the pump I was emptying the still with!

[adamOVD]

Thanks for the replies. I ran the rest of what I had with no real problems. The first run out of 5 runs was the worst for some reason.

[Bier Distillery]

Out of curiosity, did you use any silicone antifoam?

[Foreshot]

On 1/8/2019 at 1:45 PM, bluefish_dist said:

I ran some hopped beer and it almost completely plugged my sieve plates.  I think it was the hops that made a algae looking slime that coated the bottom plate.  Never again.  

That's what happened at Wigle. It caused their still to explode. 

[adamOVD]

16 hours ago, bierling said:

Out of curiosity, did you use any silicone antifoam?

I did. The beer was carbonated so I thought it was necessary. I have heard it assists in more protein precipitation though.

[Bier Distillery]

The antifoam certainly does its job, but the only times I've seen these strands is when I used antifoam.  I've always suspected antifoam somehow was the cause, but never really pinned it down.  It was especially evident when using directly immersed heating elements where the elements had all this junk hanging from them after the run.

[adamOVD]

11 minutes ago, bierling said:

The antifoam certainly does its job, but the only times I've seen these strands is when I used antifoam.  I've always suspected antifoam somehow was the cause, but never really pinned it down.  It was especially evident when using directly immersed heating elements where the elements had all this junk hanging from them after the run.

I think you're on to something. If I do this again I'll try without the anti foam, and hopefully the beer won't be carbonated.

[adamOVD]

I'll ask the brewery if they use anti foam during their boil as well. Their beer might benefit from doing so, or boiling longer to remove more of those proteins. 

[Dmonahan]

That's definitely protein.  I've distilled many beers, but never used anti-foam and never had significant precipitate.  The system "pukes" at first- foam fills everything and you get beer in the foreshots but never had any problems with clogging.  We would just save all early distillate/puke and redistill it.