1. Cool in the copper, wait for the cold break to settle, then transfer to fv. Cooling the bulk of the wort by recircing to the copper will take longer, but has the advantage of the hop bed as a mechanical filter for the break material.
2. Transfer and cool to another vessel, wait for the break to settle and then transfer to the fv. This Has the advantage of cooling far more quickly but has the disadvantage of transfering to the secondary vessel for a cold break rest, which increases the risk of infection.
As I'm very confident in my sanitising approach I decided to try option 2. At the end of the aroma steep I transfered the wort to my sanitised mash tun, cooling to 19 deg c as I did so. My mash tun has a bulkhead connector as its drain.
Prior to transfering the wort I added 5ltr of water to the mash tun, as I envisaged this to be the height to where the cold break would settle to, and then cut a small piece of 15mm copper pipe so it's open end was level with the water.
I inserted this copper pipe into the bulkhead connector, sanitised everything and then transfered and cooled the wort, the break is clearly visable.
After about an hour I transfered the beer to the fv and this is what was left at the bottom of the mash tun
It would appear I was a little generous with the size of the copper tube and it looks like I can cut 10mm from it. This should reduce the volume loss to the tun also. I shall shorten it before the next brew day.
