Decided not to filter hops

During my last batch, I decided not to bother filtering out the hops (used pellets,) figured they would just end up in the trub and it would make my life easier.

I went to replace my blowoff tube with an airlock today, and when I pulled off the airlock, the neck of my carboy was packed tight with hops. I managed to dig out most of the hops and almost none of it fell back into the beer.

Gonna go back to filtering out my hops when pouring the wort into my carboy.

i had the very same problem and on occasions where im force, i will rack off into another carboy before even pitching my yeast. That way all the trub and the marjority of hops and proteins are stuck on the bottom of my first fermenter. It makes for a much cleaner beer also but its a pain and has a higher risk of infections to your batch.

What I did for my first couple of batches was put a filter in my funnel, when it would clog, remove the filter, rinse it off, sanitize it, but it back into the funnel and go back to pouring my wort into the carboy. I would generally have to clean off the filter twice, but had about an inch of trub in the bottom of my carboy once fermentation was complete. This time I opted not to filter because I heard a lot of people talk about how it was unnecessary and more trouble than it was worth. Well, the hops plugged up the neck of the carboy and I have about 2 inches or so of trub in the bottom of my carboy.

Guys, Stop worrying! If the hops and whatnot are packed tight that tells me to use a larger fermenter. Long and proper primary and careful racking is all it takes to produce brilliantly clear beer.

IMO, dont fear the trub and hops, just wait for it to settle and leave it behind.

Mike

Maybe it's me...but all this talk of straining, filters, and racking makes me nuts!

wilserbrewer said:

Guys, Stop worrying! If the hops and whatnot are packed tight that tells me to use a larger fermenter. Hops, trub and proteins leading to infection...utter nonsense! Long and proper primary and careful racking is all it takes to produce brilliantly clear beer.

IMO, dont fear the trub and hops, just wait for it to settle and leave it behind.

Mike

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Not afraid of infection, I just don't like that the hops were packed hard into the neck of my carboy. If I hadn't pulled them out now, I would have had to deal with it when it was time to bottle the beer. I'd rather take the extra couple of minutes to filter when pouring my wort into the carboy than the extra work to deal with the hops stuck in the neck of the carboy later.

I'll probably buy a larger carboy at some point, but I'm using what I've got for now.

Roger that Loup,

try a bucket...

Lately I have been siphoning my wort off the trub after cooling and aerating. Most of my brews are in the 1.070 range and I haven't had any problems yet

you can always use a hops bag....

I love my hop strainer. Easy as pie, big bag doesn't effect utilization, cuts my trub by a lot. $10 and 10 minutes to assemble.

nice looking strainer Sacc-i use a keggle so when i do 5 gal batches my utilization is deffinitly a bit less with the hops bag. I have never figured out how to calculate that though- i just overcompensate a little bit

wilserbrewer said:

Roger that Loup,

try a bucket...

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+1!!

On about my 3rd batch I had a brilliant idea. I shoved a leg of pantyhose through the neck of the carboy, and poured the beer through it. It turned out to be not such a good idea after all.