Hop pellets - Bag or no bag during boil?

I'm making a Magic Hat #9 clone, and it calls for some tettnanger, willamette and cascade hops. I have pellets on hand, and nothing to put them in. I've never added them to a boil without something to keep them in. I assume it's no big deal to add them this way, right?

I don't bother putting them in anything and I use pellets exclusively. The whirlpool method makes it easy to separate them or you could use a strainer of some sort.

bradsul said:

I don't bother putting them in anything and I use pellets exclusively. The whirlpool method makes it easy to separate them or you could use a strainer of some sort.

Click to expand...

Is the whirlpool method when you put in the cooler, and stir the pot until the particulate goes into the middle, then siphon into the primary?

Thanks for the fast response, the bittering hops are boiling now...

If you're using an IC you'll want to chill it first (hard to get a good whirlpool with the chiller in the pot. I whirlpool hot since I use a CFC. There's a great article on the wiki.

This is the result my my whirlpooling.

Or you can dump them right into the fermenter. That's what I do, and have had no problems.

I've never heard of whirlpooling. How much more wort do you get?

bradsul said:

I don't bother putting them in anything and I use pellets exclusively. The whirlpool method makes it easy to separate them or you could use a strainer of some sort.

Click to expand...

+1 I just use a jumbo strainer I got my my local HBS when I transfer the wort into my bucket.

I have a triangle shaped strainer (Jin wa?) that I put into my funnel for my boil yesterday. Up until then, I had only done boils with a hop bag, but I hated how that got all plugged up and didn't drain well. I was happy with using the fine strainer. I had to scrape it constantly to get flow through it, the hops built up quickly, but I was very satisfied with it.

I normally dump then strain when I'm putting it in the fermenter...for buckets I use a nylon paint strainer...For carboys I usually use a funnel/kitchen strainer combination...

I tried something interesting by accident yesterday, that I may use from now on if I siphon from brewpot to carboy. I was siphoning and noticed a lot of hopleafs coming through (despite my whirlpool) I grabbed the big funnel and kitchen strainer which conveniently were sitting in my sanitizer bucket, and a binder clip. I put the strainer/funnel in the carboy then clipped the end of the hose so it flowed into the strainer.

By the end of the siphoning session the strainer was clogged with green goop, but the carboy looked nice and clear.....

I ended up using my wife's rice streamer inserts to do the strain. Worked really well!

Oh crap, I didn't sanitize them. They were clean, I hope it's okay...

Hahahaha, you'll know in a few days if you have a really funky krausen or sour beer!

I'm going to run my wort through a bazooka type filter in the kettle, then post-Therminator through my juicer with the filter paper in it. This should aerate my beer as well as filter a little finer than the bazooka can. They are like coffee filter particulate size filter papers that should work great. Worse case is take the papers out and just use the perforated walls the paper normally clings to. Worked great in my dry hop tea experiment for filtering the hops into my tea solution and that was 2 oz. Everything that has been said already works very well though and you shouldn't have any problem with your "clean" rice steamer inserts. I'm just overly project orientated and had to figure out a new neat gadget that does exactly what more simple things do, lol. I used to whirlpool after chilling with my IC, now I have the CFC and really wanted to strain my hops better prior to chilling without the wait of the whirlpool.