New way to control Pellet Hop gunk!

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I've tasted the Pales and IPA's I did with the 300 micron, and they aren't sweet, so I got most if not all of what I assumed would be in there.

Chad offered for me to ship my 300 back for a 400, and I will probably do that, but might do one more brew with it and change my process a bit and see what happens.
 
I have been following this thread and apologize if I already missed this. Has anyone down a side by side with the 300 and 400 with all pellets? I brew with mainly pellets and cannot decide between the 2. I don't mind a few extra tenths of an ounce here and there to account for utilization loss. I am looking to really clean up the wort heading into the fermenter.
i'd stick with the 300, if clarity is you main concern. at the end of my chill i lifted my 300 out of the wort and let it drip. the liquid that came out was pretty damn clear. mind you, any fine particles that were going to get through probably already did so earlier in the boil... but overall it seemed to do a great job of holding back hop material.

stonebrewer, a local brewing buddy, will be getting a 400. at some point we'll have to do a side-by-side comparison: use both filters in a boil, split the hops evenly between the two, then measure at the end how much hop matter was retained by each filter. i suspect that the 400 will let through a little more, but probably not a lot. TBD.
 
Not that I have seen, I compared the 200 to the 300 and just shipped back my 200 to Chad to convert to a 400 so I can test it out. My objective was zero hop residue into my plate chillers before hitting the fermenter and the 300 accomplishes that nicely. I believe from what I have seen that the 400 would work as well without any issues but I won't know on my setup until i test it out. I will gladly post pics and plan on using both in my kettle at the same time with a reasonably high hop-billed DIPA.

Sorry if you've already covered this but can you elaborate on your plan to use both? Are you putting leaf in one and pellets in the other? You said a 300 and a 400 right? I was thinking maybe the leaf hops in the 400 and pellets in the 300? Or are you just planning on 2 because of the shear volume of hops in your iipa?
 
BullGator said:
Sorry if you've already covered this but can you elaborate on your plan to use both? Are you putting leaf in one and pellets in the other? You said a 300 and a 400 right? I was thinking maybe the leaf hops in the 400 and pellets in the 300? Or are you just planning on 2 because of the shear volume of hops in your iipa?

Hi, since I know what to expect out of the 300 in the order of hop gunk I was planning on splitting a heavy hop bill IPA in half and performing the additions to each one. I will end up using a couple of lbs of hops for a 20 gallon batch so it will test the capacity, utilization and I'll see first hand how much gets past the 400. All of these will be pellets.... Some of the dregs are already well pulverized into near powder already ; )

The goal is to simultaneously check and photo the performance and flow of the 300 and 400 side by side.
 
Hi, since I know what to expect out of the 300 in the order of hop gunk I was planning on splitting a heavy hop bill IPA in half and performing the additions to each one. I will end up using a couple of lbs of hops for a 20 gallon batch so it will test the capacity, utilization and I'll see first hand how much gets past the 400. All of these will be pellets.... Some of the dregs are already well pulverized into near powder already ; )

The goal is to simultaneously check and photo the performance and flow of the 300 and 400 side by side.

I'm definitely interested in the results.

I am on the same quest you have been on I think. I just got a plate chiller and am so paranoid from all the stories of them getting gunked up. Two common solutions to help reduce this was to filter as much out before your PC and be vigilant with flushing it immediately after use. So far, I have purchased a bazooka screen, a hop stopper, a hop rocket, and a false bottom in trying to find the best way to keep the hops from getting to the PC. Haven't used the hop rocket yet (my hope is that it would provide great hop aroma but also filter the wort) but I know I will need something else in my keggle to catch the hope leaves prior to getting to the hop rocket. The bazooka screen may be ok for styles other than IPA's but I brew a ton of them so that won't work. I also haven't tried the hop stopper yet but it may have a similar problem as the bazooka screen but less because it has more surface area. I tried a false bottom with a pickup tube this past weekend on a iipa with 15 oz of hop leaves (12 gal boil). It was a disaster. The screen moved and the hops clogged my valve. I ended up sanitizing a trash bag which I put my arm in to thread on my bazooka screen on my valve. It was the only way I could filter my wort without using an autosiphon with something wrapped around the end.

So needless to say I'm still looking for something that will work reliability. I still need to try my hop stopper and I think my issue with the false bottom was that I didn't crank down my pickup tube tight enough. So I might try that again as well. But I am still intrigued with the option of this SS basket screen which is the topic of the thread.
 
BullGator said:
I'm definitely interested in the results.

I am on the same quest you have been on I think. I just got a plate chiller and am so paranoid from all the stories of them getting gunked up. Two common solutions to help reduce this was to filter as much out before your PC and be vigilant with flushing it immediately after use. So far, I have purchased a bazooka screen, a hop stopper, a hop rocket, and a false bottom in trying to find the best way to keep the hops from getting to the PC. Haven't used the hop rocket yet (my hope is that it would provide great hop aroma but also filter the wort) but I know I will need something else in my keggle to catch the hope leaves prior to getting to the hop rocket. The bazooka screen may be ok for styles other than IPA's but I brew a ton of them so that won't work. I also haven't tried the hop stopper yet but it may have a similar problem as the bazooka screen but less because it has more surface area. I tried a false bottom with a pickup tube this past weekend on a iipa with 15 oz of hop leaves (12 gal boil). It was a disaster. The screen moved and the hops clogged my valve. I ended up sanitizing a trash bag which I put my arm in to thread on my bazooka screen on my valve. It was the only way I could filter my wort without using an autosiphon with something wrapped around the end.

So needless to say I'm still looking for something that will work reliability. I still need to try my hop stopper and I think my issue with the false bottom was that I didn't crank down my pickup tube tight enough. So I might try that again as well. But I am still intrigued with the option of this SS basket screen which is the topic of the thread.

We are indeed on the same quest. Mine is exacerbated by building an ambitious tandem therminator system which indeed got clogged the first time I used it. I too went down the false bottom in the kettle route which does great for leaf but is crap for pellets and I use almost exclusively pellets these days unless I score a killer deal on whole leaf or fresh hops. The filter approach has done pretty well so far but I definitely want to see the potential of the 400!
 
I think we need 3 tests (I would volunteer both am time limited). They need to be the same person on the same rig with the exact same recipe.

Test 1 would be no hop filter using pellets.

Test 2 would be a 300 mesh filter using pellets.

Test 3 would be a 400 mesh filter using pellets.

Send all 3 identical samples to White Labs for Beer Analysis (including IBUs). This will scientifically identify the effects of the filter in the 2 most preferred mesh sizes and without the filter.

This test set seems to fit best (2 test sets comparing no filter to 300 and 300 to 400):

LS6640 Beer Twin Test: Comparison for two beers for alcohol, extract, attenuation values, IBU, and VDK.
 
Anyone use these with a jamil style immersion chiller? I'm planning out which equipment direction I'm going to head to for 6 & 11 gal batches and since I already have a 50' 1/2" IC adding a whirlpool is the cheapest option vs a plate chiller.
 
I think we need 3 tests (I would volunteer both am time limited). They need to be the same person on the same rig with the exact same recipe.

Test 1 would be no hop filter using pellets.

Test 2 would be a 300 mesh filter using pellets.

Test 3 would be a 400 mesh filter using pellets.

Send all 3 identical samples to White Labs for Beer Analysis (including IBUs). This will scientifically identify the effects of the filter in the 2 most preferred mesh sizes and without the filter.

This test set seems to fit best (2 test sets comparing no filter to 300 and 300 to 400):

LS6640 Beer Twin Test: Comparison for two beers for alcohol, extract, attenuation values, IBU, and VDK.


Ideally if you were going to do that test, it would be three separate boils, all from the same mash with the same post boil volume an concurrent fermentation with identical pitches and fermentation timeline.

At $138 a test * 4 tests that's a pretty cost prohibitive experiment to accomplish.
 
I just got a plate chiller and am so paranoid from all the stories of them getting gunked up.

You are still going to have some "gunk" in your plate chiller, even with this. Most of it can be eliminated with proper whirlpool technique, draining, and some sort of filter on the drain. Even then, there are particulates in your wort, suspended proteins, etc. that still can and will slip in. I have used a plate chiller for a long time and what I do it flush it after the brew day with boiling water in both directions. I then fill it with StarSan overnight. Never had an issue with it. I also rinse it again on brew day and StarSan it for at least 5 minutes before I use it.
 
Hi all
Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
and to Thank you very much for The support you all have given me.
going on Vacation for a 10 day break

See ya all Next Year....:mug:
 
At least for those still using direct-fired BK, has anyone tried resting one of these things directly on the kettle bottom (especially a larger-diameter unit)?

It seems like one of the concerns is hop utilization and boil/flow within the filter unit - if the filter screen is on the bottom of the BK, the bubbles formed by the boil may form on the inside of the screen, so that the wort on the inside of the screen is boiling.

Anyone tried this yet? Is there a downside to this that I am missing? Cost may be prohibitive, but the idea would be to use large-diameter mesh filter 'pot-within-a-pot' so all hop additions as well as wort-chiller are placed within the filter basket and only a 1-2" 'tube' of wort and the pickup tube are on the outside of the basket. You could probably even whirlpool within a big enough basket...

-fafrd
 
I rested mine on the bottom of my bk and saw the wort boiling inside the filter. I have successfully brewed three batches with mine, two of them were recipes that I have brewed before, and I could not tell any difference between the ones with the filter and the ones brewed with free floating hops.
 
I rested mine on the bottom of my bk and saw the wort boiling inside the filter. I have successfully brewed three batches with mine, two of them were recipes that I have brewed before, and I could not tell any difference between the ones with the filter and the ones brewed with free floating hops.

Thanks DrHops - getting the boil in the basket should go a long way toeards addressing any concerns about hop utilization. How do you chill and transfer? Do you whirlpool? What diameter filter do you use and would you see any advantage to an even larger diameter filter?

-fafrd
 
I chill and transfer with a 40 plate chiller gravity fed to my bucket. I don't need to whirlpool since I use the plate chiller. I'm not sure of the diameter, I bought one of the first ones from Chad off eBay, it is a 400 micron one.
 
Got it - so you get all of the hop gunk out with the filter and then get through your plate chiller on the way into your fermentation vessel without worrying about trying to filter the cold-break out of the wort - sounds pretty effective.

Do you lift the filter out of the brew kettle before feeding the plate chiller or leave it in place and let the wort drain out from around it?

Several posts have shown the filter pretty much clogged with hops and containing a much higher level of wort than the surrounding pot (meaning that the pot is draining much faster than the filter) - do you see that?

I understand the filter you have is 400um, but could you provide a rough idea of the filter diameter and the BK diameter?

Most of my experience is with whole hops, but I'm planning to move to pellets and your experience with these filter baskets is helping me to decide on the solution I want to adopt.

-fafrd
 
Brewing on a stormy day in California today, 20 gallon batch of an Amarillo Pale and I will test the limits of the 300 in this batch with about 12 oz of pellets. Will post pics as I go along....

image-844459663.jpg
 
Wow, great experience today as I tried something new. I left the basket in the brew kettle and let it drain while moving the wort through my plate chillers and to the fermenter. It worked great and condensed into a really easy to dump blob-o-hops. The wort tasted really hoppy to me but I haven't brewed this recipe before (I just made it up this morning) so I'll have to wait until it turns out to see if it is worth brewing again. Total of three hop additions went into the basket: 3oz for 60 min, 4oz for 20 min and 4 oz for 5 min. Total of 11oz and room for lots more in my basket if stirred.

image-2263713150.jpg


image-1646019360.jpg


image-3743784257.jpg
 
marcb said:
Wow, great experience today as I tried something new. I left the basket in the brew kettle and let it drain while moving the wort through my plate chillers and to the fermenter. It worked great and condensed into a really easy to dump blob-o-hops. The wort tasted really hoppy to me but I haven't brewed this recipe before (I just made it up this morning) so I'll have to wait until it turns out to see if it is worth brewing again. Total of three hop additions went into the basket: 3oz for 60 min, 4oz for 20 min and 4 oz for 5 min. Total of 11oz and room for lots more in my basket if stirred.

Forgot to add that I basically set up a whirlpool to recirc for the last ten minutes of the boil to sterilize the chiller rig and ended up just flipping on the cold water at flameout and leaving the recirc going while the wort cooled down to about 120 in roughly five minutes. I then started switched to pumping into the conical at full throttle and the wort was leaving the chiller at about 60 degrees. I aerated about 1/3 of the wort en route to the fermenter and had zero sludge in the bottom of the kettle, just a mild coating on the false bottom. When cleaning out the chillers with PBW there was zero gunk or break material during the cleaning cycle. Not sure why there wasn't more break material as this batch was on a full boil for 60 minutes.
 
FredTheNuke said:
Looks like the 300 performed with excellent results!

Indeed! I had never left it in the pot to drain before and that worked wonderfully. Will do a similar test with the 400 when it arrives or brew a Pliny and use both side by side in the same vessel now that I know exactly the sludge out from the 300.
 
Hi guys I know this was mentioned a couple of times earlier in the thread but I never saw anyone post any results or statements that it was tested - whats the verdict on using one of these for steeping grain for an extract brew?

I'm about to request a quote for a 300 micron version just like runningfarmer's setup but if it would double as a grain "bag" for extract brewing I'd use it for that too...until I complete my all grain setup that is! :D

Thanks, Matt.
 
mattwood2000 said:
Hi guys I know this was mentioned a couple of times earlier in the thread but I never saw anyone post any results or statements that it was tested - whats the verdict on using one of these for steeping grain for an extract brew?

I'm about to request a quote for a 300 micron version just like runningfarmer's setup but if it would double as a grain "bag" for extract brewing I'd use it for that too...until I complete my all grain setup that is! :D

Thanks, Matt.

That's a damn fine idea. I'm sure it would work great.
 
mattwood2000 said:
Hi guys I know this was mentioned a couple of times earlier in the thread but I never saw anyone post any results or statements that it was tested - whats the verdict on using one of these for steeping grain for an extract brew?

I'm about to request a quote for a 300 micron version just like runningfarmer's setup but if it would double as a grain "bag" for extract brewing I'd use it for that too...until I complete my all grain setup that is! :D

Thanks, Matt.

Hi Matt,

Contact Chad, he recently built a 13"x9" one for this purpose. I would probably recommend the 400 for this purpose though as the 300 might be too fine for BIAB.

image-3544345005.jpg
 
That's a damn fine idea. I'm sure it would work great.

Thanks for the reply - I'll be sure to report my test results when I do get it. My concern is if there would be any effects on the steep due to the pore size of the mesh, however the grain bag I currently use is much finer than the 300 micron filter I suspect. Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on why NOT to do it.

- Matt.
 
Hi Matt,

Contact Chad, he recently built a 13"x9" one for this purpose. I would probably recommend the 400 for this purpose though as the 300 might be too fine for BIAB.

Hi Marc what do you think the negative effect would be on having it too fine - just the drainage issue or something else?
 
mattwood2000 said:
Hi Marc what do you think the negative effect would be on having it too fine - just the drainage issue or something else?

Strictly how long it would take to drain the grain and/or rinse out to sparge. I definitely think that the 400 would work better for grain and I haven't seen any complaints about it for hops so it seems like the right way to go.
 
Strictly how long it would take to drain the grain and/or rinse out to sparge. I definitely think that the 400 would work better for grain and I haven't seen any complaints about it for hops so it seems like the right way to go.

OK thanks!
 
I actually made a whole basket using 30x30 mesh and found that the boil really didn't circulate well. The bubbles just went along the bottom and up the sides SEE HERE Of course, I was using a steamer basket so that definitely affected perfusion. I also know the hopstopper is made of about 30 mesh and has been known to clog.

Interestingly, 30 mesh is actually about 600 microns. For the 300 and 400 micron screens used in these hop hangers, that equates to 50 and 40 mesh....which are pretty dang fine...somewhere between table salt and flour.

particleexamples.gif


So, I'd be interested to see how a 700-800 micron screen would perform...that would be 20-25 mesh and it would keep back the coarsest vegetable matter and let the REALLY fine stuff pass. The chart above describes 20 mesh for use with ground coffee...which when wet in a coffee filter is very similar to hop sludge. Ideally, it would not cause a plate chiller problems and allow maximum perfusion during the boil.
 
marcb said:
Hi Matt,

Contact Chad, he recently built a 13"x9" one for this purpose. I would probably recommend the 400 for this purpose though as the 300 might be too fine for BIAB.

Hey, that looks like my bucket! Lol, I've been working with Chad on this to prototype a s/s BIAB type system for my 8gl kettle. It should work nicely for my 2.5 gl batches. I hope to get it in operation soon and will give you all a good review on how it works.
 
wobdee said:
Hey, that looks like my bucket! Lol, I've been working with Chad on this to prototype a s/s BIAB type system for my 8gl kettle. It should work nicely for my 2.5 gl batches. I hope to get it in operation soon and will give you all a good review on how it works.

Lol, sorry - not trying to steal your thunder! I was on the phone with Chad discussing something similar so he sent me some pics.... I look forward to reading about (and seeing pics) of your first brew day with it!
 
Does anyone know the mesh size for voile fabric which is used in so many BIAB bags? Or compared these buckets to voile? And lastly, has anyone used a voile bag as a hop sack?
 
Has anybody used this filter with a hop shot. The reason I ask is that I made a PTE clone last week and my hop blocker preformed horribly. I think the resin and hop gunk was too much and ended up losing 3/4 to a gallon of wort. Obviously I would inject the hop shot into the wort directly not into the filter.
 
I used my new rig from Chad earlier this week and I am a little unsure on how it performed. I got it with the 300 micron filter, and was not getting very much flow through it with 2 oz of pellets in it.

Is there any consensus on whether these work well, or is the mesh too fine to allow for efficient diffusion of hop oils?
 
So, I'd be interested to see how a 700-800 micron screen would perform...that would be 20-25 mesh and it would keep back the coarsest vegetable matter and let the REALLY fine stuff pass. The chart above describes 20 mesh for use with ground coffee...which when wet in a coffee filter is very similar to hop sludge. Ideally, it would not cause a plate chiller problems and allow maximum perfusion during the boil.

I could be completely wrong, but I'd be really nervous about using a 700 micron screen with a plate chiller. My completely unscientific concerns are I think pellet hops will break down to finer particulates than the average coffee ground and would allow enough material through to cause eventual problems with flow in the plate chiller.

I bet it would be fine with a CFC though.

I personally have been waiting to hear back from marcb on how he felt his 400 worked as I think I'll eventually switch to a plate chiller and am guessing 400-500 will be the sweet spot.
 
Either way, a plate chiller has to be backflushed...and in either case you'd be surprised at what comes out! They are a high maintenance piece of equipment with only a slight speed advantage over other systems. Once you figure in the maintenance and cleaning schedule, it actually makes your brew day longer. I say this because I have experienced it myself. But, I am intrigued by the whole thing just because I like the engineering side of brewing.

The sweet spot must lie somewhere between 400 and 700 microns...but I can tell you this...if you put the screen under the sink and droplets sit on top without moving through....that barrier will be magnified once you use pellet hops and the fibers plug the open space in the screen.

This is why I think there needs to be an "acceptable particle size" for the standard plate chiller...that is, a definition of how large the particles can get before the plate has issues (clogging, infections). If you know the maximum particle size, then you can select the proper filter and keep everything else out (going maybe 10% finer to err on the side of caution).

OR, use a 2 stage system. Even in industry, there is no one-size-filters all. Filters get overwhelmed by sludge and it is necessary to attack different particle sizes with different grades of filter. Use a very coarse hop hanger in the boil, then run to a grant with a fine filter....then chill it.

One cheaper way to do a 2 stage filtration could be using a hop hanger that lets some matter through...say 500 microns. Then you can separate the rest of the particles with a strong whirlpool and gravity rest. Breweries do this to lessen their filter loading because it is cheap and effective. So, this way you're free floating a fraction of the hops outside the hop hanger while the majority is restrained, and still keeping 95% out of the plate.
 
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