New way to control Pellet Hop gunk!

stonebrewer said:

Hey marcb! I was checking out pix in post 584 a page or so back and noticed what looks like a whirlpool device you got piped over the edge of your brew pot. Can you post a few more pix of that? I have all the fittings for a whirlpool but was dreading punching another hole in my pot and didn't like the idea of adding another valve on the outside. What you have there looks like just the ticket!! It would be great to see pix on the outside, how you have it plumbed together, yada yada! Thanks and thanks for pointing us to Chad!

PS - that carboy hop screen looks awesome!

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Hi,

That is actually the water out for my tankless water heater and a bad camera angle as it makes the floating thermometer look like its attached to the water out. I'm happy to post a pic of that assembly though as if you added a 6" stainless nipple, another elbow and a 1/2" mpt to 3/8" barb you would indeed have a nice whirlpool contraption for your boil kettle.

just ordered a hop strainer from stainless brewing! soooo stoked. By the way he just lowered his price on his strainers by $10!

weebop said:

just ordered a hop strainer from stainless brewing! soooo stoked. By the way he just lowered his price on his strainers by $10!

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Cool, shouldn't you post this on his vendor showcase page??? Why don't you get it, use it and then lets see how great it works and post some pics to help better inform others on the forum. I don't understand how people haven't used something for brewing but feel compelled to wax poetic about how great it is.....

marcb said:

Cool, shouldn't you post this on his vendor showcase page??? Why don't you get it, use it and then lets see how great it works and post some pics to help better inform others on the forum. I don't understand how people haven't used something for brewing but feel compelled to wax poetic about how great it is.....

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A friend of mine got a giant sized one from Stainless and used it last week, worked great.

bovineblitz said:

A friend of mine got a giant sized one from Stainless and used it last week, worked great.

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Is this the giant one that was crushed en route and was held together with hose clamps and rivets? I'd love to see pics. Was this a grain basket or hop strainer? What micron did they use? What was the hop bill of their recipe. Saying someone got something and it worked great is useless for the rest of us that are trying to be analytical in our approach and equipment purchases. I love all the hoopla about the Stainless brewing guy that he has to request that other people post to this thread and constantly complain to the mods. I don't make products or sell products. I build, buy and test stuff for my own home brewing--- I post the output for others to learn from my experiences so that they can make better educated decisions when they pull the trigger. There are a million hop spider threads.... post on those. I will tell you this, after all the crap that was pulled on this thread by Stainless Brewing I would NEVER do business with them.

marcb said:

I will tell you this, after all the crap that was pulled on this thread by Stainless Brewing I would NEVER do business with them.

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+1 to this. I got a really bad vibe with all the whining in the beginning. I'm just glad chad vendored up so it doesn't have to be weird anymore. I still haven't bought his product, but I 100% intend to, especially after my last brew day using 10 ounces of pellets without bags and losing a gallon+ of beer with a messy fermenter to boot. I'm thinking the courser filter, the 400?

marcb said:

Cool, shouldn't you post this on his vendor showcase page??? Why don't you get it, use it and then lets see how great it works and post some pics to help better inform others on the forum. I don't understand how people haven't used something for brewing but feel compelled to wax poetic about how great it is.....

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I would like to apologize to anyone else on the thread that felt this way about my post. The purpose was to notify other readers who were in the market to buy that there was a recent decrease in price. Wasn't trying to poetically gloat about how great it is...although I would like to thank marcb for such a complement to my writing. Never heard it be called poetic before. Perhaps you could email my humanities professor because that SOB doesnt think so...

marcb said:

Is this the giant one that was crushed en route and was held together with hose clamps and rivets? I'd love to see pics. Was this a grain basket or hop strainer? What micron did they use? What was the hop bill of their recipe. Saying someone got something and it worked great is useless for the rest of us that are trying to be analytical in our approach and equipment purchases. I love all the hoopla about the Stainless brewing guy that he has to request that other people post to this thread and constantly complain to the mods. I don't make products or sell products. I build, buy and test stuff for my own home brewing--- I post the output for others to learn from my experiences so that they can make better educated decisions when they pull the trigger. There are a million hop spider threads.... post on those. I will tell you this, after all the crap that was pulled on this thread by Stainless Brewing I would NEVER do business with them.

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400 micron. It wasn't the crazy huge one, I think it's a 10 or 12" ring, not sure of the height. It is held with clamps and rivets. I know I saw pics but can't find them. I'll probably check it out in person this weekend, hopefully he's brewing but regardless I can get more info and pictures. The hop bill was fairly large, over 8oz of a combination of pellets and leaf hops in a wheat and the secondhand feedback I have is that it strained very well.

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Personally I bought one from Chad (beautifully seam welded vs rivets and a clamp plus a better price seems like a no brainer to me) and I love it, 400 micron (per feedback on this thread) 6x14 basket that hangs on the side of the pot which I find less clunky than a spider. I used it three times so far, the batch yesterday had 5.5oz of hops across the boil (2oz were flameout) and there was plenty of motion inside the basket. It drained quickly and there was a LOT of hop material inside the basket, at least 3 inches. I didn't notice any green that got through the mesh. Previous batches had about 4oz of hops and 5oz, worked great both times and has never seemed saturated. At some point in the near future I'll make an outrageous IPA and see if I can oversaturate it. A few people in this thread noted that the 400 lets some material through, I haven't seen anything getting through. It's possible that it depends on the specific pellets, since from what I understand they're sometimes ground differently.

edit: I'm not sure how important this is but I like to let the hot break occur, then I put the strainer in. It seems to me that less gunk sticks to it, though I don't really have any proof of that. My first batch I started off with it in the wort and it looked pretty gunked up. I didn't notice any utilization issue though.

These aren't really the most useful pics in the world but I'll post them anyways. That's a 10gal Polarware pot for reference.





Better?

bovineblitz said:

400 micron. It wasn't the crazy huge one, I think it's a 10 or 12" ring, not sure of the height. It is held with clamps and rivets. I know I saw pics but can't find them. I'll probably check it out in person this weekend, hopefully he's brewing but regardless I can get more info and pictures. The hop bill was fairly large, over 8oz of a combination of pellets and leaf hops in a wheat and the secondhand feedback I have is that it strained very well.

----------------------------

Personally I bought one from Chad (beautifully seam welded vs rivets and a clamp plus a better price seems like a no brainer to me) and I love it, 400 micron (per feedback on this thread) 6x14 basket that hangs on the side of the pot which I find less clunky than a spider. I used it three times so far, the batch yesterday had 5.5oz of hops across the boil (2oz were flameout) and there was plenty of motion inside the basket. It drained quickly and there was a LOT of hop material inside the basket, at least 3 inches. I didn't notice any green that got through the mesh. Previous batches had about 4oz of hops and 5oz, worked great both times and has never seemed saturated. At some point in the near future I'll make an outrageous IPA and see if I can oversaturate it.

edit: I'm not sure how important this is but I like to let the hot break occur, then I put the strainer in. It seems to me that less gunk sticks to it, though I don't really have any proof of that. My first batch I started off with it in the wort and it looked pretty gunked up. I didn't notice any utilization issue though.

These aren't really the most useful pics in the world but I'll post them anyways. That's a 10gal Polarware pot for reference.

Better?

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Out and out awesome, thank you. Sorry for being snarky, this thread has taken some twists and turns recently and not very pleasant. It is not my intent to flame anyone, nor am I pushing any products. I see a tremendous amount of value in sharing data and experience in this community.

marcb said:

Out and out awesome, thank you. Sorry for being snarky, this thread has taken some twists and turns recently and not very pleasant. It is not my intent to flame anyone, nor am I pushing any products. I see a tremendous amount of value in sharing data and experience in this community.

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Fair enough, no worries. Clearly, a lot of us are very happy you asked so many questions in the first place and spurred this whole thing. It's probably my favorite brewing toy and I think half my homebrew club is gonna buy one now. It's definitely the most elegant solution I've seen and the utility/cost is up there with the ebay temp controller. It's a great example of why I think it's well worth being a premium member of this site and supporting the medium through which we can exchange all these great ideas.

So yeah, cheers!

Been following this thread for a bit now. These look killer!

So is there any new and improved keggle versions? I do 6 gallon batches fairly often so it would either need to be long or have some sort of drop down bar. Maybe one hook to make it reach the bottom for 6 gallons and another to hang it higher for 12 gallon batches.

thirstyutahn said:

Been following this thread for a bit now. These look killer!

So is there any new and improved keggle versions? I do 6 gallon batches fairly often so it would either need to be long or have some sort of drop down bar. Maybe one hook to make it reach the bottom for 6 gallons and another to hang it higher for 12 gallon batches.

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If you can dream it, he can build it. I'd probably just go with a really long one that hangs 1" or so off the bottom of your pot, if I were you. The 2 hook idea is cool if you're using a smaller pot, but if it's all in the same pot I don't see the benefit over a longer one (other than looking sweet).

Looking at those pics, I wonder if my IC would fit around that filter.

I just want to apologize to Marcb, Chad or anyone else that feels hurt. The previous page obviously shows that you're upset Marcb and that was not my intention. I looked back at all of my posts and have not once said anything negative about you, Chad or his product. I realize this seems to be more of a promotional thread than an informational thread in the Equipment/Sanitation section and probably shouldn't have made any posts. My apologies. My first post was just backing Chads welds up stating they were ok for people that were unsure (post138). The second post was stating why our prices were different (we were brought up in this thread) and I thought me and Chad were ok (post147). See post 150 right after that I think Chad's doing a great thing. Every other post I've made was for informational purposes on our baskets, not negative feedback on Chad's product. It also seems that any post I make or anyone that states the name "Stainless Brewing" you get upset and I'm confused why? You ask questions and others and I have answered very politely. The last page someone that I never told to comment, replied on this thread that they bought our product. You asked a question and one of Chad's customer's responded. How did it lead to this? "I will tell you this, after all the crap that was pulled on this thread by Stainless Brewing I would NEVER do business with them."

The first time this thread got shut down was because someone wasn't happy about Chad's product, nasty names were exchanged, it was shut down and comments were deleted. I had nothing to do with that. The last time was because Chad was simply unaware of the rules and promoting his product in StainlessBrewing Vendor Showcase threads. Once again, I'm glad for Chad and his product! I'm happy that he is a Vendor on HBT now and can promote all he wants. I wish I had his tooling for seam welded baskets. He's taken quite the load off me and seems to keeping other members here happy. I hope that one day you might find something we carry and our customer service to gain you as a customer. Negative feedback is VERY welcome about our product so we can constantly improve but it doesn't make sense if it only comes from someone who doesn't own one. We do provide much more than baskets and I'm sorry you feel this way about us all around. I just don't want you to get upset if someone else brings up Stainless Brewing in this thread again. Like you stated earlier, the Vendor Showcase is probably the best section to keep our name out of this thread. I will no longer comment in this thread about us or any of our product due to the tension it has caused.

Zach

bottlebomber said:

Looking at those pics, I wonder if my IC would fit around that filter.

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Mine is 6"x14" and does not. I have to lift it and re-sit it inside the IC. That being said, Chad is working on something for me to allow me to leave the strainer filter in place along with the IC. I'll post more when we get it done.

Yambor44 said:

Mine is 6"x14" and does not. I have to lift it and re-sit it inside the IC. That being said, Chad is working on something for me to allow me to leave the strainer filter in place along with the IC. I'll post more when we get it done.

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That doesn't sound too bad, just as long as you've got a leather glove to lift up the basket as I am sure it is quite toasty.

It's good to be objective about a product. Either it works or it doesn't.

To be fair, Chad is sort of specializing in screened baskets. He makes a lot of these, and if you look closely, you can see that it is for many other applications than homebrewing. He is obviously very good at what he does.

Stainless brewing offers similar baskets PLUS many other items. There is going to be a learning curve for the guy who is not a professional fabricator...I have no doubt that they will make the necessary modifications to their product....they obviously care about the quality of what they sell, or they wouldn't be here apologizing.

Let the products speak for themselves....criticize the product, not the vendor...and let them work the bugs out based on customer feedback.

Here's another prototype that Chad is working on, he sent me a few pics this week but I have been up in the mountains so I have been slow to post them. This is for dry hopping in corny kegs.

I like that a lot better than the one (2) I just bought from morebeer.

Those look awesome! Have you used them yet? My only concern looking at the top is that I'd expect pellet hops to flow freely through there getting hop gunk loose into the beer.

Any idea on what the expected cost might be?

Jukas said:

Those look awesome! Have you used them yet? My only concern looking at the top is that I'd expect pellet hops to flow freely through there getting hop gunk loose into the beer.

Any idea on what the expected cost might be?

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Not yet, I sold off most of my cornies so I'm probably not the guy to test this one out : ) I think Chad will be selling these for about $45... He's trying to gauge interest to see if people want these.

Koo-do's to this Chad guy. Someone needs to get him on these forums to show him the demand that is building

I love seeing the small guy come up.
Subscribed- purchasing soon

marcb said:

Not yet, I sold off most of my cornies so I'm probably not the guy to test this one out : ) I think Chad will be selling these for about $45... He's trying to gauge interest to see if people want these.

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Well send em up to me and I'll test em out for ya

TUCK said:

Koo-do's to this Chad guy. Someone needs to get him on these forums to show him the demand that is building

I love seeing the small guy come up.
Subscribed- purchasing soon

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He's on the forum, with a paid vendor account. I am excited to see what he comes up with as well, he is obviously a skilled craftsman.

marcb said:

Here's another prototype that Chad is working on, he sent me a few pics this week but I have been up in the mountains so I have been slow to post them. This is for dry hopping in corny kegs.

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Marcb is correct they will be for sale soon for $45 and for previous customers you will receive a 15% discount.
My first run of 60 will be ready soon and I'm taking pre-orders as well.

Contact me directly.

I'd be interested to see if these would work in my process, myself. I drop hop ONLY in the keg, and generally try to use leaf if I can, or use leaf and pellets.

Anyone used one yet, and have some thoughts on it?

chads454 said:

Marcb is correct they will be for sale soon for $45 and for previous customers you will receive a 15% discount.
My first run of 60 will be ready soon and I'm taking pre-orders as well.

Contact me directly.

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Is there a Screen on the back side of that lid with all the holes?
If not maybe do away with the holes...they appear larger than the mesh.

dazed said:

Is there a Screen on the back side of that lid with all the holes?
If not maybe do away with the holes...they appear larger than the mesh.

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I think they would be fine. The holes look about half the size of the ones in the MoreBeer Oak/Dry hop tubes I just bought.

Yambor44 said:

I think they would be fine. The holes look about half the size of the ones in the MoreBeer Oak/Dry hop tubes I just bought.

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The holes in the top are around 5/32 or .156 400 micron is .0165 and that's a +/- give due to what wire size you use, The size of wire in a given mesh will change the micron rating.

If there's some concern on that, I'll put in a mesh disc after the top eyelet is
put in that's. not a problem.

So when does the website launch?

uberg33k said:

So when does the website launch?

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If you email him he can take care of you. I just received a 6x14 300 micron screen 3 days after ordering it.
I wouldn't wait for the website if your interested in something now. He took my order and I paid him thru paypal. It was a Real Smooooth Transaction. A+ Vendor

I would definitely be interested in on of these dry hop tubes. I would want the top holes covered though.

So I brewed a 10G batch of Alaskan Amber clone this weekend using the custom 400 mesh spider that Chad whipped up for me. Absolutely NO pellet gunk in the trunk! I always had crap that would clog the screen in my funnel going into the carboy. A major pain! This time: absolutely zero! Never had to stop and clean the gunk so I could get the wort into the carboy. Saved time and effort which is huge at the end of a long brew day. This was a good investment for me. I am really happy with the results and am looking to get one of those carboy screens as well. I ruined 5G of beer because I did not have a good way to get the hops out when I was in a hurry and leaving the country for a month. Chad's new design looks like it is just what the doctor ordered...

stonebrewer said:

So I brewed a 10G batch of Alaskan Amber clone this weekend using the custom 400 mesh spider that Chad whipped up for me. Absolutely NO pellet gunk in the trunk! I always had crap that would clog the screen in my funnel going into the carboy. A major pain! This time: absolutely zero! Never had to stop and clean the gunk so I could get the wort into the carboy. Saved time and effort which is huge at the end of a long brew day. This was a good investment for me. I am really happy with the results and am looking to get one of those carboy screens as well. I ruined 5G of beer because I did not have a good way to get the hops out when I was in a hurry and leaving the country for a month. Chad's new design looks like it is just what the doctor ordered...

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stonebrewer,

what diameter spider did you use? Did you have any boil and turbulence at the interior of the spider or was it all going up the outsides? (and what is the diameter of your BK?)

Good to hear that it retained all of the hop particles. Did you do anything about the hot break or just transfer all of the break to your carboy? (still filtering on entry to carboy but now not clogging because no more hop pellet particles???).

I'm thinking about getting one of these as well and appreciate a few more details on your process...

-fafrd

chads454 said:

Marcb is correct they will be for sale soon for $45 and for previous customers you will receive a 15% discount.
My first run of 60 will be ready soon and I'm taking pre-orders as well.

Contact me directly.

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Got my order in for two, they look great. No more tea balls for dry hopping.

Kegged my Pliny yesterday from the crazy brew day pictured and had dry hopped directly in my conical with no filter. I lost 5 gallons (25% of my batch) to hop sludge : (

Next up, sketching a filter that will work in my conicals!

dazed said:

If you email him he can take care of you. I just received a 6x14 300 micron screen 3 days after ordering it.
I wouldn't wait for the website if your interested in something now. He took my order and I paid him thru paypal. It was a Real Smooooth Transaction. A+ Vendor

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I know where to find him, I just recall him saying that he was launching a website and there would be a few new surprises in store. Just wondering how all that turned out and what the surprise was.

marcb said:

Kegged my Pliny yesterday from the crazy brew day pictured and had dry hopped directly in my conical with no filter. I lost 5 gallons (25% of my batch) to hop sludge : (

Next up, sketching a filter that will work in my conicals!

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Hey marcb, about to order my screen for my B3 26gal kettle. For the ability to effectively hop for 10 gal as well as 20 gal batches would the size screen you have work for both applications?

Thanks!
Mike

uberg33k said:

So when does the website launch?

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It is now live, www.arborfab.com

Its very basic now Not enough time in the day to finish all the way.
But orders can be placed.

Looks good!