Filter/Strainer for Plate Chiller - Page 2

**Golddiggie** · 02-05-2012, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SankePankey

Actually that's a benefit. It's the other way around. Would you rather have a loose bag that you can throw in with your fittings in a shallow solution of PBW at the end of brew day, or some big unwieldy stainless mechanism (be it a stainless hop spider or an in line filter) that is one more thing to clean out with a brush cause it's too big to soak. (and believe me you will have to brush it out well if you've been trying to push wort thru pellet matter in an in-line filter).

What?? The hop spider I made/have uses stainless hardware to hold a nylon bag that the hops go into. I also toss the bag, and sometimes the rest of the hardware (after taking it apart, since that's so easy even a cave man could do it

), goes into a PBW soak. In it's current configuration, I estimate that the bag could hold at least 8oz of pellet hops in my normal batch boil sizes. I have another (longer) bag that I can use for/with the keggle I'm building. That should allow me to use even more hops if I wanted to.

**dfess1** · 02-05-2012, 06:50 PM

Mine is even cheaper (stolen from someone here). A 4" PVC coupler, a double hook coat hanger, and a screw hose clamp big enough to fit over the 4" couper. Screw the coat hanger to the side of the coupler, and hang it off the side of the BK. Works pretty well. I was using hops in Muslin bags, but they were getting trapped under the pickup in the BK. This works very well, and as stated, just rinse it out in the sink when you are done.

I do whirlpool. That said, I hook the plate chiller up to the pump/BK with the last 20 min of the boil and start circulating, in order to get the plate chiller and the pump to transfer it sanitzed. I'll get some hop debris in there, but nothing to worry that much about. Nothing that impedes the flow through the chiller anyway. Once I'm done transferring the wort into the carboy, and I dump whatever is left in the BK, I have a PBW solution that circulates through the pump and the chiller for a good 20 min. Once done with the PBW, rinse again for 15 min with cool water through the same setup. Everything comes out pretty clean from that.

Knock on wood, haven't had an issue yet with that method.