[oscarvan]

Yesterday I cooked up 10 gallons of the WS APA.

The boil, for some reason was very civilized. The hot break was not violent, and very easy to control. I also didn't have the egg drop soup going and no "bloom" in the bottom at the end...... strange.

I did two things different from before. I mashed slightly cooler than before (152º) and I mashed 90 instead of 60 minutes, with a 15 minute batch sparge.

The 60 and 10 minute hop additions were pellets, but this time the 2 minute addition was whole hops. This of course has no effect on the hot break, but it seems like a lot of "particles" may have clung to the leaf hops. The wort came out very clean looking (not clear, but no visible particles).

Any thoughts here?

[maxieboy]

Wort clarity coming out of BK; the whole hops effectively act as a filter. One of the reasons I prefer them.

[malzig]

Even just one addition of whole hops can make a decent filter bed.

I'm a little worried that you didn't see any obvious hot or cold break, though.  That could be a sign that your pH was off.  Your beer might be cloudy without a decent break, but hopefully the pH wasn't off enough to damage the flavor too much.

[oscarvan]

Same water same grains....... Didn't check though.....

[maxieboy]

Same boil intensity?

[oscarvan]

Same boil intensity?

Nice rolling boil......

[mabrungard]

Using whole finishing hops is one of those tricks one of my clubmates in the North Florida Brewers League taught me.  It does help consolidate and hold the trub in the center of the pot after whirlpooling.  The overall trub mass is less likely to be drawn off from the kettle.  Having a large bottom area is helpful too.  My 15 gal pot is probably 6 to 8 inches larger in diameter than a typical 1/2 barrel keg pot and the trub island usually doesn't slope all the way to my wort drain manifold at the periphery of the pot.