how well to strain wort after boil

Question

Just wondering how well you folks strain your wort when transferring to primary.

I brewed my first batch last night and, aside from forgetting to take an OG reading, everything went well. However, I was surprised at the amount of trub in the wort. As I was poring the wort into the fermenter using a cheap strainer, I couldn't help but wonder if I should be taking more care during this step.

I have a typical wire mesh strainer, like you might find at Target, which catches most of the trub but probably lets plenty through as well, that I used last night. I've read somewhere (Palmer?) that you can line it with a couple layers of cheesecloth. I also have a fine mesh strainer (like you might use to strain a consomme or something), but it would probably take upwards of 20-30 minutes to strain 3 gallons of wort through it. I tend to think that the cheap strainer sans cheesecloth is probably fine, especially since I'll rack to a secondary before bottling anyway.

Any thoughts, or accepted 'best practices' for this step? What ill effects could too much trub have in the fermentor?

Answer 1

The strainer alone is fine; no need to get cheesecloth or anything like that. You might look into a "hop spider" or generally any sort of mesh enclosure for either leaf or pellet hops, which will otherwise make straining basically unnecessary. Spend time on the things that matter more: fermentation temperature control, proper yeast pitching rates and wort oxygenation.