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| The Double Luck Brewing Process: |
| Spooging |
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URL: http://www.doubleluck.com/things/brewery/process/spooging.php
Last modified: Wed, 27 May 2009 13:22:58 -0600
Copyright © 1999-2010 Larry Bristol - All rights reserved.
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As the wort cools, certain complex compounds that are soluble in hot liquid
will precipitate.
This is known as the cold break.
In addition to the cold break, we also have the spent hops and other
materials in the wort.
At the Double Luck Brewery all this stuff mixed with the wort is
euphemistically called spooge, and the process of removing it is called
spooging.
How this is accomplished depends on how the wort is cooled.
Using a Cooling Bath or Immersion Wort Chiller
If a cooling bath or immersion wort chiller is used, the cooled wort containing the spooge to be removed is
still in the boil kettle.
Sanitize the mash tun and its false bottom, and pour the cooled wort,
spooge and all, into the mash tun.
After this is allowed to settle for a moment, the petals from the spent hops will form a filter bed, much like
the grain husks did during sparging.
The initial runnings through the filter bed are gently recirculated back on top of the liquid until the
runnings are clear.
The clear wort is now collected into the (sanitized)
primary fermentation vessel.
Cold water can be gently sprinkled onto the hop bed to rinse it of wort clinging to the petals until enough
liquid has been collected.
A side benefit of the spooging process is that the vigorous agitation that the wort receives causes
oxygen from the atmosphere to be dissolved into the wort.
This oxygen will be needed by the yeast during the initial stages of
fermentation.
Using a Counter-flow Wort Chiller
When a counter-flow wort chiller is used, the cooled wort is now in the primary fermentation vessel.
Much of the spooge material gets removed when the wort is passed through the chiller, so perhaps this cannot
really be looked on as a separate step.
Before boiling the wort, we placed a hop screen (a false bottom) in the kettle.
After the boil is complete, the hot wort is allowed to settle in the boil kettle so that the petals from the
spent hops will form a filter bed on top of the hop screen.
As the hot wort is removed from the boil kettle, the spent hops will filter out most of the solid materials.
This does not include the cold break, of course, because this does not appear until after the wort has passed
through the chiller and is in the primary fermentation vessel.
This cold break material will be removed later during the fermentation step.
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