floaters in extract

[Old Gil]

Just put down an extract brew and the LLME had a heap of floaters in it, almost like it already had hop pellets in it. I've never had this happen before so I was wondering if there is something wrong with the extract I used

[earle]

Can you give us a bit more info on what the floaters looked like.

I used some dex from a sealed bag for a ginger beer yesterday, had a couple of insects in it. Scooped them out and made sure it came to the boil for sterilization.

[Kevnlis]

Did you boil the extract? My guess is cold break.

[Old Gil]

Can you give us a bit more info on what the floaters looked like.

I used some dex from a sealed bag for a ginger beer yesterday, had a couple of insects in it. Scooped them out and made sure it came to the boil for sterilization.

Definitely not insects, more like flakes of bread

Did you boil the extract? My guess is cold break.

Yeah I boiled the extract, I heated it up in a pot of boiled water to soften the contents for about 20 mins then put in the boil which was 4 ltrs after adding extract. It was very flakey even from the beginning.

Will the cold break affect my brew taste wise

[Kevnlis]

No, it is something that is contained in all extract. The wort is not cooled before it is evaporated so it does not lose the break material.

There is a bit of debate, but it is widely accepted that a bit of cold break will not have an adverse effect on the brew, and is beneficial to the yeast.

[Old Gil]

How do we tell if there's too much cold break?, mine looked like it had a piece of dried bread crumbled into it. It didn't look like a little. I'm surprised I haven't seen this before. Is it less likely to happen with LDME?

[Kevnlis]

Like I said, the amount of acceptable/desired cold break is debatable. I would not worry yourself too much, I have been using various brands of extract for 5+ years and never had too much!

LDME would do the same, it is not cooled before being evaporated either. LDME is just LLME that has been spray dried.

[Old Gil]

Cheers Kev, I'm not stressin' as much now

[rwh]

Noticed the same thing the other day with Coopers liquid wheat malt extract... put it in the boil and got a cloudiness similar to miso soup. I figured it was break material that had snuck into the latest batch; I've never seen it before.

[warra48]

Noticed the same thing the other day with Coopers liquid wheat malt extract... put it in the boil and got a cloudiness similar to miso soup. I figured it was break material that had snuck into the latest batch; I've never seen it before.

Could be break material, but wheat beers may also have a fair whack of protein which might cause cloudiness.

[Kevnlis]

I agree with warra here. I think what you saw rwh was the cloudiness of wheat malt which is different from the cold break material contained in other malts (though the wheat malt would have some break material as well).

[rwh]

That still doesn't explain why I've never seen it before. Perhaps Coopers got a batch of high-protien wheat or something. Or maybe their break-filtering stuffed up. All just speculation.