Keeping Leaf Hops out of Fermenter

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Stevorino

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I am going to use Leaf Hops for the very first time on tomorrow's brew day. What's the best way to keep these suckers out of my fermenter? I usually use a hop bag for my pellet hops, but the guy at the LHBS suggested otherwise -- what do you all suggest doing?
 
Last brew I used a very large straining bag from Northern Brewer. The hops had plenty of room to float around in a vigorous boil, more than a pound of hops in 10 gallons. Your LHBS guy needs to get out more.
 
If you ferment in buckets, you can use a 5-gallon paint strainer bag right in the fermenter, or a stainless sink strainer over it.
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I use carboys now, so I transfer into my HLT through the strainer, then to the carboy.
 
An alternative to the hop bag is the strainer and a funnel. This is what I used to do. Go from kettle thru sanitized strainer into carboy.

I've also found the copper scrubby (Chore Boy) on the end of the racking cane serves as a very good strainer of the leaf hops.
 
There's nothing wrong with using a hop bag for whole hops - I do it all the time. The main thing is not to stuff the bag so full of hops that the wort can't circulate around them. The muslin socks I get will expand quite a bit, but I try to stay at an ounce or less per bag.

Usually I only bag the bittering additions; I usually just throw the finishing hops directly in. After cooling I pour them through a large stainless steel strainer over my bucket to keep most of them out of the wort.
 
For whole hops, that screen will work very well.

Prior to installing a DIY hop filter for the diptube in my kettle, this arrangement served me quite well:

IMG_5260.JPG
 
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