hop bag? Spice ball during boil?

Is it possible to use a hop bag or a spice ball during the boil, or will negatively impact the utilization of the hops?

Are you talking about this kind of ball?



I would think that would be too small and wouldn't let the hops expand enough which would cut down on utilization. I've used muslin and nylon bags before and they work well. Other people just throw the hops right in.

Used nylon paint straining bags for the first time today. It cut down on the mess going into the fermenter, especially with leaf hops. Of course, then you have the mess inside the bag to clean out.

You can pickup a 5 gallon paint strainer bag at the local big box hardware store and use that to mostly keep your hop mass in one easy to remove bundle.

Works better on whole or plug hops than pellets but it helps cut down on the hop sludge from pellets as well. Just one less item in the trub at the end of the boil.

Kinda the same question but...

Is there a good reason for using (or not using ) a muslin bag for your bittering hops and finishing hops?? (besides the obvious part of not having to straing it)

and also i received 1 musling bag (quite large) for my stepping, can i cut this into 1 large and 2 small sacks and just tie the ends off for my 2 smaller bags of hops? and just use the big one with the stitched bottom for my steeping bag?


Thanx

Joel

nylon or cheesecloth

why not just use the same bag for all the hops? just tie it off to the side of your boil pot and open it up with each addition.

Yes, you can use a large herb ball and get good hop utilization. I'm not so sure about the tea ball shown above but herb balls (4 inch diameter) work just fine as do hop bags. Just be sure to leave lots of expansion room in the bag if you're using the disposable sock type.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-LARGE-MESH-TEA-INFUSER-SPICE-BALL-POT-KETTLE-4-D_W0QQitemZ110282778837QQihZ001QQcategoryZ20651QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

Get yourself 2 or 3 of those bad boys. They work GREAT! With the 8" chain, you can hang them right on the rim of the pot on a full 5 gallon boil for easy removal. With pellets, some does escape the holes, but it does an amazing job of keeping the bulk inside. And they're honestly very easy to clean... just dump them out and rinse!

Oh man that thing does look awesome. Thanks for the heads up!

Say for instance i hate Ebay... what kind of shop locally would i have to look for one of these at??

I tried the normal ones (target, walmart..ect..)

(i just like to personally check things out like this first.. i dont mail order too much unless i have to )

Thanx Joel

Ps. first brew (Porter) in the fermenter and bubbling happily! great hobby!

I tried the balls. They didn't work well in the boil. I'm keeping them for dry hopping in the keg. Next brew I'm going with the paint strainer bag from the orange big box store.

You can pick up those balls at The Kitchen Window or other Kitchen related stores. You may be able to find one at a bulk tea shop.

Saccharomyces said:

I tried the balls. They didn't work well in the boil. I'm keeping them for dry hopping in the keg. Next brew I'm going with the paint strainer bag from the orange big box store.

Click to expand...

What didn't you like about them?

The pellets expand and the wort doesn't get through them. My hop utilization was really bad with the ball. I used the paint strainer bag mounted to a PVC ring method this weekend and it worked MUCH better so I'm sticking with the new setup from now on.

I attempted to use a spice ball my wife has for a batch 2 weeks ago. The ball I used is not a mesh ball but rather a solid stainless ball with 1/16 inch holes in it. It didn't seem to make much difference in terms of preventing hop particles from getting into the wort.

This weekend I purchased an extra fine nylon hop back from LHBS. The bag floated around a lot, which was rather unexpected. The good news is that it did keep the hops out of the wort and really seems as though it will positively impact the clarity of the beer.

I'm still several weeks away from tasting the beer to see how it was impacted.

mikes65 said:

NEW LARGE MESH TEA INFUSER SPICE BALL POT KETTLE - 4" D - eBay (item 110282778837 end time Aug-29-08 14:09:30 PDT)

Get yourself 2 or 3 of those bad boys. They work GREAT! With the 8" chain, you can hang them right on the rim of the pot on a full 5 gallon boil for easy removal. With pellets, some does escape the holes, but it does an amazing job of keeping the bulk inside. And they're honestly very easy to clean... just dump them out and rinse!

Click to expand...

For Pellets too?

Saccharomyces said:

The pellets expand and the wort doesn't get through them. My hop utilization was really bad with the ball.

Click to expand...

for my first few batches, I used a smaller style tea-ball, and yeah, the hop pellets expanded so much that nothing ended up making it to the wort.

The tea balls that I'm telling people work great here are like 4" tall and 4" round... for an ounce or so of pellets, there is tons and tons of room for them to expand. Quite a few of the smaller pieces make it out through the filter into the wort, but most stay behind.

I'm probably going to boil a new batch today, and I'll try to take and upload a picture to show you exactly what the hops look like in the tea ball both before and after boiling.

meh. what's wrong with a good ole bag? don't like cleaning them?

Speaking from experience, I just tried adding .75oz Magnum pellet hops to a 2" diameter herb ball. The hops expanded in the wort, and the hops completely filled the inner compartment.

With that, I immediately removed the herb ball and added my hops to my nylon bag. Didn't want to risk it...

allthingsgiant said:

Speaking from experience, I just tried adding .75oz Magnum pellet hops to a 2" diameter herb ball. The hops expanded in the wort, and the hops completely filled the inner compartment.

With that, I immediately removed the herb ball and added my hops to my nylon bag. Didn't want to risk it...

Click to expand...

i think the suggestion was using LARGE 4x4 spice ball, it has over 4 times interior volume than the one you used.i have also seen 5" spice balls as well

I used a large nylon grain bag in my last boil (something like this.) and it floated around until the hop particles clogged the holes in the bag and it took on enough wort above the trub cake to sink it. Still in primary, so we'll see how well it worked in a few weeks. I expect that it will be not as hoppy as originally intended.

the third pic in this gallery shows that bag pretty well: http://beerandstuff.com/?p=66

There was very little sediment in the bottom of my pot compared to the half inch or so that I had last time. Clean up was fairly simple: squeeze the wort out of the hops until they were a pasty consistency (it looked almost exactly like the weird foam florists use) and then drop them in our compost. Flip the bag inside out and be sure to rinse the corners thoroughly.

I have used Muslin sacks and find those very easy to work with. They even hold in a fair bit of the pellets. I saw the nylon bags at the store but it seems like it would be too much bother to clean.

When I am finished using the sacks with specialty grain I throw them into a mixing bowl, then squeeze the juice out of them with a spoon and pour that back into the Wort. With hops I let them plop out into my filter then squeeze them after I have poured the wort through. Any issues with that technique?

Is there a compelling reason to use the nylon bags over muslin, other then muslin not being reusable?

Thanks,

Chris

This link shows a good way to use a straining bag - A little walk thru the big-box store for a couple of PVC pieces - I don't have a photo of mine, but it's adapted for a 10-gallon brewpot - just a piece of wood with a slot cut in it to hang over the edge of the pot, and screwed into the PVC. Bag is friction fit between two couplings, so easy to clean...