Filtering Hops Before Fermentation

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rancineb

Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
Location
Grayslake
We just finished doing our first brew and have a question about filtering after the boil. As we poured the wort from the kettle into the carboy, we tried to filter as much as we could to catch the used hops, but some does get through. From your experience, does it make a difference if there is some hops in the carboy during fermentation, or do we just need to make sure we do another filter before bottling?
 
As long you catch a majority it doesn't make a difference. The rest will settle on the bottom during the fermentation. There is no need to filter. What do you use for bottling? If you use a siphon make sure the cap is on so you don't catch the sediment.
 
What jumertens said.

I try my best to filter as much hops out when I transfer the wort to my fermenter, I have a stainless steel, mesh thingy that does a pretty good job but, yeah, little bits can still get through. Especially if I use pellet hops.

When I make IPA's, I typically end up having some hoppy sediment at the bottom of my bottles. I can reduce it by carefully racking from my primary fermenter to a secondary (which I don't always like to do) and also by conditioning the beer for a longer time before bottling so that the hops pack down with any yeast trub.

But, the reality is that I don't worry too much if there's a little hop dust in my brews.
 
It depends on how much beer you want to have after fermentation though. If you have a crap ton of trub in your fermenter, that's beer that will not be bottled or kegged.
 
I'm going back to using my hop sacks/grain bags for pellet/raw hops. Those darn leaves & hop cones get into everything. But I like using the fine mesh strainer over top of my plastic fermenters,since it gets out most of the grainy stuff,aside from the fine powder type grains of whatever. It aerates reall well pouring the chilled wort & top off water through the fine mesh strainer as well. Then stir like mad for 5 mins to mix & aerate further.
Less trub means more beer into the bottling bucket.
 
Sorry for being MIA. Glad to know it won't matter too much as long as we're careful in extracting the beer. We have it fermenting in a carboy right now and plan on doing a siphon for our bottling. After a couple days I can already tell a difference from the hops settling to the bottom and the color becoming more golden (brewed a pale ale). We did use pellets so it looked like pea soup trying to strain the wort into the carboy.

How do you go about filtering the wort for fermentation? We're using carboys so have to use a funnel. Had one with a filter but it was so fine that we had to clean the filter too much. Went to a strainer which did the job but a bit of a pain having one person hold the funnel and strainer and another pour. Curious if anyone has any different options that were pretty successful. Probably need to look for a larger funnel so I don't have to be so careful pouring.
 
How do you go about filtering the wort for fermentation? We're using carboys so have to use a funnel. Had one with a filter but it was so fine that we had to clean the filter too much. Went to a strainer which did the job but a bit of a pain having one person hold the funnel and strainer and another pour. Curious if anyone has any different options that were pretty successful. Probably need to look for a larger funnel so I don't have to be so careful pouring.

Yeah I just went through the exact same thing. We even tried siphoning out of the kettle and into the funnel. Worked pretty good until closer to the bottom. We just filled the funnel up and slowly cleaned off the screen with a spoon until it all drained through and then we dumped that mush and did it again. Took atleast 30 min. to get 4 gallons into a carboy. We also used pellets.
 
Coffee filters...they are magic and while a buddy of mine mentioned them years ago I did not think to use them until recently. I use a 3-tier strainer system when I transfer from boil to chill pot, then a two-tier strainer system with a coffee filter on top (you will need several coffee filters as they fill up fast)

Its amazing how much sediment and hops I am keeping out of the fermenter now...try it (at least the coffee filter, don't know if you need my over-the-top strainer system)
 
We just take the boil pot and put it in ice with a wort chiller. We don't have a separate chill pot. I'll definitely try the coffee filter approach and see how it goes.
 
In my two batches I haven't bothered filtering into the primary. I auto siphoned my first batch three weeks ago into my bottling bucket w/ a dip tube & my beers had no visible sediment except for the last one. Dip tube FTW.

I've read on here that cheese cloths make wonderful filters. Will try it on my next batch I think. Coffee filters seem small & laborious to me.
 
A coffee filter is not small or laborous...it is the smallest mesh setting you can get out of any material (gold filters will allow a little more)...simply place the coffee filter in a strainer and your ready to go with an easily movable filter...
 
No-chill baby! I just dump the whole shootin' match into the cube at flame-out, let it sit for a few days (or weeks, or months), then siphon the nice clear wort into the FV when it's time to pitch some yeasties. :ban:
 
Bumping an old thread for the benefit of Google users... :)

If you want to keep hop or other sediment out of the bottle, you can put the end of your siphon tube into a sanitized mesh bag before inserting into the carboy. I find that it tends to leave a little beer behind, but it allows a single vessel fermentation even with massive amounts of hop debris (I'm a bit insane with my hop additions).
 
Back
Top