T is for Trub

T is for Trub

It sounds bad. It sounds like trouble. Because it is.

Trub is that nasty brown-grey stuff that builds up in the bottom of the fermentation vessel. It can wind up being an inch-thick layer of sludge that looks strikingly like what I remember having to frequently clean up when my son was an infant.

Yeah, it’s gross.

Trub is left over debris from brewing – hops and other spices and grain pieces – that managed to get from the kettle to the fermenter. It is also full of the solid wastes of the yeast as they’re doing their work.

You don’t want to leave it in with your beer any longer than you must, as it can result in terrible off-flavors.

Racking is the most common method for home-brewers to get the trub away from their brew. Another method is to use a conical fermenter with a collection container at the bottom that you can remove and dump the trub without moving the whole brew.

Trub is no fun, but a necessary result of fermentation. You got to get rid of it somehow.

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I’m participating in the April A to Z Blogging Challenge. The goal is to write a post prompted by a letter of the alphabet on each day of April (except Sunday). My theme this year is brewing. Visit my other A to Z posts by clicking here.