[flbrewer]

Picking up a few items and I'm curious if a funnel with a strainer is a good idea, or one with the anti-splash design.
Would a reduction in trub poured into the fermentor ever be a negative thing?

[duboman]

I'd go for the funnel with a strainer, just a handy thing to have

[thebigbaker]

My funnel has a strainer and I like it.  Athough I don't worry too much about how much trub gets into my fermenters, it's nice to strain some of it.  You just need to be careful when you use a good amount of hops as the strainer will clog.  I use a home made hop spider for my pellet hops, so there's never enough "stuff" to clog my funnel strainer now. 

I don't think reduction of trub going into the fermenter is a bad thing.  The less that goes into the fermenter, the less than can make its way to your bottles/ kegs.  Most of it falls to the bottom of the fermenter, so as long as your careful while racking, you can get some good clean beer into your bottles/ keg. 

[Slowbrew]

I have a funnel with a strainer but I rarely use the screen in the funnel.  My attempts have always lead to the screen plugging within a couple of minutes.  That doesn't make the idea bad, I just haven't had much luck with it.

The books say to remove as much trub as possible as you move to the fermentor.  I often transfer quite a bit of trub (because I tend to rush) but I don't see issues in the finished product.  Removing trub won't hurt your beer but I haven't seen not removing it cause any issues either.

YMMV

Paul

[Joe Sr.]

I'm with Paul on this.  I've pretty much stopped using the strainer and have not noticed any ill effects.

As a plus, transferring is faster.

[klickitat jim]

I guess this is another reason to use buckets. If I am cold crashing I use nothing. I just drain to my crash bucket and then put it in my freezer at 45 over night, then rack to a fermentor in the morning leaving the crash behind. If not crashing I use a sanitized paint strainer. Its a nylon mesh bag that fits my 6 gallon fermentor. Either way works well for me. I prefer cold crash especially if I plan to reuse yeast. I always get nice clean cake with nearly no trube