False bottom or hop stopper for brew pot

Trying to decide between a false bottom for my keggle brew pot or something like the hop stopper that also uses a dip tube. Looking for suggestions/recommendations. With a whirl pool setup which will do a better job keeping break material and hops from getting into the ferrmentors?

Thanks,
David

how much is the hop stopper? $60 right? Because right now on More beer you can get a FB for $27...

https://morebeer.com/view_product/17240/102216/Stainless_Screen_10

Now yes you will still get trub from the fb... but if you are running whole leaf hops in the kettle, you can recirculate the wort for a bit and it will act almost as a filter bed to catch some of the trub... No its not perfect but it works better than no filter at all...

Trub is no biggie... I'd go with the cheaper option...

I use the FB and really like it. As mentioned above, the hops collapse on top of it and create a great filter. I thought something was wrong with my yeast cake the first batch I racked to keg after using the FB. It was almost pure white and about 1/3 the thickness of my cakes before. It was almost all yeast.

FB & full width would be my choice. More specifically, the Sabco version.

FBs work well in BKs? I thought I was a genius when I fabbed one up using one of these (which I punched a TON of 1/8" holes in to allow wort to flow through better). I ended up with a solid 3/8" sheet of carbon on the bottom of my brewpot the scorching was so bad...had to chip it out and spend hours with a drill to grind the rest away....

I was wondering about this as well. I'm using a 10g boilermaker as my BK & use pellet hops almost exclusively. From what I've read, multiple people have had issues with excessive cold break clogging the hopstopper when using an IC, which, in my case, is what I use. I've also heard people voicing concerns about scorching the wort while boiling because of the false bottom restricting the free flow of the liquid.

shortyjacobs said:

FBs work well in BKs? I thought I was a genius when I fabbed one up using one of these (which I punched a TON of 1/8" holes in to allow wort to flow through better). I ended up with a solid 3/8" sheet of carbon on the bottom of my brewpot the scorching was so bad...had to chip it out and spend hours with a drill to grind the rest away....

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The FB works very well in my BK. I've been using it that way for many years and never once have I had a problem with scorching. Not even a little. Did you fab some supports for the splatter screen thing? IIRC, it's got to be up off the bottom to work right. A real FB might work better for you.

Catt22 said:

The FB works very well in my BK. I've been using it that way for many years and never once have I had a problem with scorching. Not even a little. Did you fab some supports for the splatter screen thing? IIRC, it's got to be up off the bottom to work right. A real FB might work better for you.

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I first did trial water boils. Before punching 1/8" holes in the screen, the whole thing would lift up because the water vapor bubble couldn't easily pass through the mesh. The 1/8" holes helped that. My makeshift FB didn't have standoffs or supports, but was wide enough to fill the entire bottom of the keg, so it only touched at the edges and the concave bottom of the keg didn't touch it, (so it looked like this, but not like this).

I dunno, the scorching I got from it was extreme...like beyond scorching, this was at least a 1/4" of solid charred black burnt sugar, all across the bottom of the keg. I was able to pull out huge chunks of burned sugar once I chipped them off the bottom of the keg....looked like someone started a peanut brittle on the stove and just forgot about it and cooked it for a week.

BendBrewer said:

I use the FB and really like it. As mentioned above, the hops collapse on top of it and create a great filter. I thought something was wrong with my yeast cake the first batch I racked to keg after using the FB. It was almost pure white and about 1/3 the thickness of my cakes before. It was almost all yeast.

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Seems the false bottom is the way to go, especially with the price difference. What vendor would be recommended for the best deal/quality for a FB?

I got this one from my LHBS. I use a flat bottomed pot.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10654

BendBrewer said:

I got this one from my LHBS. I use a flat bottomed pot.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10654

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Nice! I have keggles that I am configuring for my AG setup so I guess I need to find a FB that fits the slight concave bottom of the keg.

Yeah, not sure about the keggle. Some guys use FB in them but not that one I posted. I think one poster here makes them.

I have this one in my BK. I enlarged the center hole a bit to accommodate a 1/2" ID rigid copper pipe pick up tube:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...arge-hole-false-bottom-1-2-hole-no-elbow.html

It has been working out very well for me, but if I had it to over again I think I would go with a full width FB from Sabco.

I have seen this in the BYO mag, anyone know if its any good:

http://www.homebrewstuff.com/servlet/the-373/sanke-keg-weldless-conversion/Detail

Catt22 said:

I have this one in my BK. I enlarged the center hole a bit to accommodate a 1/2" ID rigid copper pipe pick up tube:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...arge-hole-false-bottom-1-2-hole-no-elbow.html

It has been working out very well for me, but if I had it to over again I think I would go with a full width FB from Sabco.

Click to expand...

This looks similar and is a few $$ cheaper:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/11-sanke-stainless-steel-false-bottom.html

adurotec said:

This looks similar and is a few $$ cheaper:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/11-sanke-stainless-steel-false-bottom.html

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I believe that's the same as this one from NB:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...ttoms/abt-false-bottom-w-stainless-elbow.html

The Midwest one is significantly cheaper at $39 vs $52 from NB, but the shipping may negate the difference. These are all basically the same FB with a different center hole diamter and one has a dip tube included. I like the curved up lip that matches the Sanke concave bottom curvature for a good seal. That's why I picked this particular FB over the others, but I would still go full width if I were to do it over.