all the gunk at the bottom

[Nickrp83]

When going from the brew pot to the fermentation bucket, do I want to scrape all the gunk from the pot into the fermentation bucket? Or just pour in what falls in? I used a dry extract kit and hops for the last batch and it looked like there was still some hops at the bottom. Just looking for some insight as we will be brewing our next batch this weekend after we bottle this batch.

[maltbarley]

It's a good idea to leave as much trub (pronounced: troob) behind as possible. Too many spent hops in fermentation can give your beer a grassy flavor.

If you don't have an auto-siphon, it's a cheap investment that will eliminate pouring of your wort and will help you avoid moving the gunk.

[JonGoku]

Ideally you want to leave as much gunk, or trub as it's called behind. If you are able to use a siphon or if your boil pot/kettle has a tap on the side you can do a better job of leaving this stuff behind by using a whirlpool method. Whirlpooling is simple and all you need to do is stir the pot in a circular motion and then leave it for about 5-10min. Due to the "teacup" action the trub will collect more densely in the middle of the pot and once this has happened you can siphon from the edge and avoid transferring much more of the trub.

[kevinham]

Whirpooling is very helpful. If you want to keep it very simple, cool the kettle as much as possible this will help settle the trub out to the bottom, then carefully and slowly pick it up and pour it, trying not to shake or stir any of that up. Once you start seeing it in the bottom of the kettle about to pour out, stop. Some will get through, but some gets through a whirlpool too. It will just settle to the bottom of the fermenter, and you can rack off the top of it when bottling or transferring to a secondary for additional aging and clearing. I always have a little bit that settles out in the bottom of my fermenter after just a couple minutes, and never have any problems.

[bwarbiany]

Leave what you can if you can, but don't worry if it makes it into the fermenter. I've made plenty of great beer carrying most or all of the trub into the fermenter.