test your whirlpool?

i've always used a hop spider with my hop additions because i use a plate chiller and have been worried about stuff getting stuck in there.. i think my hop utilization is lacking because of it so i wanted to try testing out a whirlpool to see if that would work..

does anybody know of a material i can use besides hops to put in a test boil of plain water to see how effective a whirlpool can be on my setup? i wanted to do a test run and try it out that way so i can just look through the top of the keggle to see how it is resting at the bottom and when it is pumping off.. thanks!

Try used hops, they should give a realistic test.

well yeah i know that would work.. i just don't have any on hand and wanted to do a lot of something w/o spending like 15 bucks..i 'll probably have to end up doing that, but didn't know if there were any alternatives

Just do one more brew with your current setup and then perform the whirlpool test.

As long as you don't run it through your plate chiller you might try boiling some sawdust. I'll bet that it will sink after being boiled.

If you don't have impediments to the whirlpool (like electric elements) the whirlpool will work (and faster than the 15 minutes suggested). You'll get a nice little cone in the center of the tank that you can easily view as you drain the BK.

But...even if you have a diverter plate welded into your BK, as the pot empties, the cone collapses, exposing your plate chiller to a bunch of hops. If you don't mind 'wasting' that amount of wort, no problem.

I am thinking about buying a trub filter to see if I can get all the wort w/o all the trub. Dunno.

I use a march pump and 1/2" tubing and have lost confidence in my whirlpool. It seems that if I use more than 3 oz of hops and Irish moss I get too much waste. I spin for 5 and rest for 15 but can't get a compact cone.







I will be doing a 10 gallon batch next and with 8 oz of hops, I'm using a spider. Might pull it out before whirlpool. Undecided for now.

^^^^ That looks like a pretty good cone to me. I do the same, circulate with a March and rest for 25-30 min, then pump off the top with my transfer pump (self-priming) until I get down to the cone.

Something else I've noticed...when I used a center dip tube, I would draw off about 2 pints until the wort ran clear, then if I kept the drain going the beer continued to run clear...the trub tends to stay put once there is a little clearing.

It is quite soft and spreads out too early.

You've got yourself a 'normal' cone and yes they do spread out 'too' early. You're going to have to look for a different solution if you want to retrieve much more wort w/o that break.
I just bought a filter from brewershardware.com http://www.brewershardware.com/Trub-Filter/
...but have not tested it out yet. The owner told me straight out that most people really like it, but that some folks hated it. For what it's worth.

nealperkins said:

You've got yourself a 'normal' cone and yes they do spread out 'too' early. You're going to have to look for a different solution if you want to retrieve much more wort w/o that break.
I just bought a filter from brewershardware.com http://www.brewershardware.com/Trub-Filter/
...but have not tested it out yet. The owner told me straight out that most people really like it, but that some folks hated it. For what it's worth.

Click to expand...

that looks pretty sweet.. i'll have to add that to my christmas/birthday list .. not too cheap but for piece of mind for my plate chiller not too bad at all

Hop socks and spiders are on my shopping list.

duckredbeard said:

Hop socks and spiders are on my shopping list.

Click to expand...

i've always used a spider.. while they are great for my normal malty beers, when i tried an IPA i didn't get nearly the utilization that i should have according to beersmith.. its not scientific, i was just going by taste, but for the clone recipe i did it was nowhere near where it should have been..

duckredbeard said:

I use a march pump and 1/2" tubing and have lost confidence in my whirlpool. It seems that if I use more than 3 oz of hops and Irish moss I get too much waste. I spin for 5 and rest for 15 but can't get a compact cone.

Click to expand...

Its hard to tell from your picture, but how close is your return tube to the wall of the keggle?

It took me a bit of adjustment in my set up to find the sweet spot that yielded a tight cone. I found that the output had to be very near the wall it self.

I used the comments from Wayne1 in this posting to make my adjustments.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/professional-whirlpooling-177968/