Are whole leaf hop worth the trouble

I just finished 4th AG. I used 2 oz Cascade whole leaf hops. What a pain. I didn't use a hop bag, just tossed them in the boil. Clogged my spigot, resorted into removing last gallon from boiler with a pitcher. I hope I haven't contaminated the lot.

Suggestions? Use a hop bag? Pellets? Any advantage of leaf?

A hop bag will save you a lot of frustration when brewing with whole hops. I almost exclusively use pellets myself though .

Brewtopia said:

A hop bag will save you a lot of frustration when brewing with whole hops. I almost exclusively use pellets myself though .

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+1

I use whole leaf or plug when dry hopping OR when pellets are out of stock.

I prefer leaf hops. I also have a bazooka screen in my kettle to filter them out. Use what works for you, or look at adding some sort of filter in the kettle to keep the hops out of the spigot.

I also prefer whole hops, and use a false bottom above the spigot to keep the hops where they belong. I used to whirlpool and use a syphon to drain the kettle when I had an immersion chiller, which worked well. I once forgot the false bottom, and it took forever to drain the kettle.

-a.

DIY hop bag for extreemely cheap. Just sits ontop of the boil kettle

I like to use whole hops. It's an aesthetic thing for me. I get a kick out of using raw ingrediants to make my beer. That's why I almost never make an extract batch, it's seems artificial. Please don't flame me, I'm not saying using DME or LME is wrong or not real, I'm just speaking for myself. For me, I prefer to use whole ingrediants.

So to that end I always use all grain and whole hops. To expidite draining the brew kettle I put the hops in a hop sock. I think that at the scale we are brewing at concerns vis-a-vis hop utilization are pretty theoretical. If someone can tell me with certaintly that they can differentiate between the utilization that they get using a hop bag or not than they are a better brewer than I am and I wish them well.

Oh, I thought of the exception to my rule. I use pellets to dry hop so that I lose less finished product.

PTN

great input, thanks

These days you use what you can get your hands on.

My beer volume out of the keggle was suffering because of the hop junk at the bottom. Once I employed a hop bag, siphoning was easier and I ended up with every bit of beer I'd intended to get.

Plus my beer out of the keggle was much clearer:

I have a setup like BM's, too. Mine's set up so that it can sit a bit lower; I have two pieces of metal rod that run parallel and fit inside of the keg's handles, so that everything is a couple inches closer to the surface. But, I'll only use that when I've got a LOT of additions; for just one or two, I'll just use hop bags. HUGE improvement over loose hops in terms of draining the keggle, and I've come to love whole hops over the mess of pellets.

I wish I would have had one of those Hop bags on my last IPA with 8 oz. of whole hops, it was a PITA. Im a fan of pellets, but all I have is whole hops in stock.

I like that big hop bag idea. I might have to make me one of those. I like that the hops can stir around, free float, in the wort.

I've used the hop sacks and have questioned the utilization at times. I've over stuffed them by knotting, cutting and restuffing. I believe I made four additions out of one bag before.

I use whole hops all of the time. However, my favorite house brew is a triple IPA that has an OG of 1.110 and uses nearly two pounds of hops in the kettle. I use a false bottom and a Sure Screen over my pickup tube. It keeps the flow from the kettle free from clogging. Additionally, I put the whole hops in a food processor to reduce the absorption of wort by the hops.
Also, you can back flush the kettle with CO2 if things get all clogged up.

I like the hop bag. I think I have 3 or 4 of them and I just put all my hop additions in them before I start brewing and lable them so I know at what time in the boil I need to add them. I just use ty-wraps to close them and use the tail of the ty-wrap to hang the bag from so I can grab it out any time I need.
Cheers
JJ

Believe it or not, pellets ARE real hops.

I use whole hops when brewing. Always have. They seem to be the norm in the UK, whereas it seems to be the norm to use pellets in the US. I prefer whole hops for the similar reason that paulthenurse mentioned - ingredients are less manufactured.

Anyway, you can easily make a hop filter (I have made 2 as I lost the first one). Take about 1/2 - 1 foot of copper pipe that will fit inside the inlet for your spigot or get some plastic food-grade tubing that will fit over the end of the copper pipe and into your spigot. Clamp one end of the copper pipe shut with a vice and then drill loads of ~2mm holes all throughout the pipe. Takes about 30 mins to do it if you have a power drill. Works like a charm for me.

I have a cheap system so no spigot on my brew kettle. I just put a jumbo mesh bag to line the fermenter and pour the cooled wort into the bag. Whole hops/ pellet hops it doesn't matter.

I mostly use whole hops as I purchased most from Freshops. I also will be using my home grown hops, which are ofcourse whole.
Craig

I prefer whole leaf hops - I use a strainer to aerate and strain and usually use a thin bed of leaf hops to catch break proteins and the odd other mess. I pour out of the brew pot so I don't do the siphon/whirlpool method and found that pellet hops are much messier and more difficult to work with. The spend hops add depth to the filter bed and create a way for me to end up with pretty clear beer going into the fermenter.

But, I will use what I can get and would use pellets over a sub any day.

I've been using whole leaf hops from Freshops just thrown in the wort. After cooling, I use an autosiphon without any filter on the end to get as much wort into my ale pail as possible. I have to clean it out a few times as it gets clogged with the whole leaves. I tried putting a hopsack over the end of the autosiphon but it clogs almost immediately and find it works better without. When I get most of the wort out of the kettle, I put a 5 gallon sanitized paint strainer over the ale pail primary and pour in the rest of the wort.

This method is working well for me. I may begin avoiding the autosiphon all together and just pour, but this way the kettle isn't as heavy and it is easier to keep an eye on the trub without as much liquid.

Whirlpooling never worked at all for me with whole leaf hops.

Dry hopping in the secondary with loose leaf hops is no problem. I put a sanitized small hopsack over the end of my autosiphon, and just siphon to the bottling bucket. The hopsack filters any seeds or debris from the whole hops, and I don't have any problems with clogging the siphon.

Once you get a system down, I find it easy to work with Whole Leaf hops.

Do you use a hop bag just for whole/leaf hops or also with pellets? Is the 5 gal paint strainer fine enough to hold the pellet hop sludge in? I was trying to figure out a way to avoid the "pouring through the screen in the funnel" and this looks like it would work...unfortunately, I have only used pellets/plugs...

sorry if this is off topic.

-JMW

Boy this is too good of an idea.... Here's mine!!

I plan to use it Saturday with my 10gal Barleywine. Using whole hops: 4oz Chinook & 6 oz Nugget!!! 120AAU's


Sitting purdy on my keggle

Lookin' down

Thanks for the idea!!!

Time to go get 10oz of summit hops!!! :rockin:

JustMrWill said:

Do you use a hop bag just for whole/leaf hops or also with pellets? Is the 5 gal paint strainer fine enough to hold the pellet hop sludge in? I was trying to figure out a way to avoid the "pouring through the screen in the funnel" and this looks like it would work...unfortunately, I have only used pellets/plugs...

sorry if this is off topic.

-JMW

Click to expand...

Yes to both. I used to use a 5 gal paint strainer, but in the reverse fashion, not to put the hops in, but to exclude them when draining the boil pot. I rigged up a device to support the bag and my uptake was inside that. It worked too well. For my lagers I like to recirculate through my plate chiller back to the pot until I'm down to 120F and then send it to my boil pot. Even with the large surface area it would plug up a little. It was so effiecinet at removing the break material I ended up starving my yeast a little. I've now switched to a less fine stainless mesh. I doesn't stop all of the break, but what gets past the filter is small enough that it won't clog my plate chiller.