Blichmann product questions

I received a Blichmann Therminator for Christmas as well as a lot of gift card money to my homebrew store. I planned on buying the Hop Blocker and a Blichmann ThurmoMeter. Beings that I've never used any of the 3 i was wondering if just using gravity to feed my wort from my kettle down thru the Therminator and into my fermenter was the basic way of doing this or if a pump was preferred. I was going to brew this weekend and try it out for myself but the water faucets outside are frozen from the 3 snows we got in the last week. Any feedback is appreciated

I cant comment on the terminator or the thrumometer. My guess is that they are decent products

However with respect to the hop blocker my experience is not so good. Some people love the hop blocker (and I think it works well with a boiler maker kettle). I don' have a Boiler Maker. I had to fashion a pickup tube that made the hop blocker installation semi permanent. It could be taken out but not easily. After a few uses I had mold forming on the inside of the hop blocker. So if you can easily remove it from your boil kettle (like a Boiler Maker) it might be great. If you can't easily remove the hop blocker from your boil kettle, then my recommendation is to not buy the hop blocker because it needs to be cleaned after each use.

As to your question regarding gravity flow, I think this will work fine if you have a two foot elevation difference between the boil kettle and fermentor. The Theriminator and Thrumomiter would be between them.

Now, if you we're to buy a Hop Rocket by Blichmann, I would say go for it. Mark

I have 10 gallon Boilermaker that I love so the Hop Blocker outta work out well. At least that's my hope. I've also seen something called a Hop Stopper I've been reading about on here. But I think I'll roll with the Hop Blocker. Really it was between buying that and the Hop Rocket but I think the Blocker will help out more for what I need right now. I'm kind of intimidated having 10 sets of hoses running at the same time so I'm babystepping my way to the Hop Rocket

I'm reading more about the Hop Rocket now. It looks like I could run wort from my Boilermaker down into my Therminator into the Hop Rocket and then into my fermenter. Does running cooled down wort across fresh hops raise the risk of infection?

GoldenShowerGladiator said:

I'm reading more about the Hop Rocket now. It looks like I could run wort from my Boilermaker down into my Therminator into the Hop Rocket and then into my fermenter. Does running cooled down wort across fresh hops raise the risk of infection?

Click to expand...

No more than dry hopping does.

And good luck with the plan...

Cheers!

I was always under the impression that when you add dry hops there is already alcohol present which helps kill potential infection. Whereas there's no alcohol running through a Hop Rocket. I'm sure people here do it all the time so I doubt it's a big deal

GoldenShowerGladiator said:

I'm reading more about the Hop Rocket now. It looks like I could run wort from my Boilermaker down into my Therminator into the Hop Rocket and then into my fermenter. Does running cooled down wort across fresh hops raise the risk of infection?

Click to expand...

You're supposed to run it hot through hop rocket then onto therminator and into fermenters. Hot wort will increase uptake of oils in hops.

Okay. Thanks for the heads up on that. What advantage does the Hop Rocket have over your basic flameout addition of hops?

GoldenShowerGladiator said:

Okay. Thanks for the heads up on that. What advantage does the Hop Rocket have over your basic flameout addition of hops?

Click to expand...

I think the difference is that using a hop back (Hop Rocket) the wort is infused with oils and immediately cooled thus lessening the chances of the oils becoming volatile in the heat. The difference would be how quickly the wort is cooled after the hop oil infusion. I've made a couple of beers with my hop rocket (IPAs and Pale Ales). I love the aroma it gives without adding bitterness. You get to really taste the hops.

GoldenShowerGladiator said:

Okay. Thanks for the heads up on that. What advantage does the Hop Rocket have over your basic flameout addition of hops?

Click to expand...

A hopback produces aroma that is superior to dryhopping, whirlpool hops, flameout hops, etc. And as the other fellow said, it's meant to be used in-line BEFORE the chiller.

I have all the Blichmann products you've mentioned, including 4 Boilermakers. They're all fantastic products... except for the Hop Blocker, which is a total dud. And it seems I'm not alone in thinking so, I really wish had read others' opinions before buying it. In theory, the thing sounds like a genius idea, but in practice it just has a ton of issues, even WITH a Boilermaker.

What are your issues with the Hop Blocker?

So do people have pretty decent luck whirlpooling for 10 minutes and just draining from their Blichmann into their Therminator (sans the Hop Blocker)?

I also own the hop blocker and it's a complete waste of money in my opinion. It is hard to use, you have to open the lid and when hop blocker starts showing you have to pull up on the hop blocker to expose the finer "filter".

All I do now is do a whirlpool for about 5-10 minutes, then let the wort sit for another 15 minutes. Creates a great cone in the middle. I use a therminator, and have only had one blockage with it...and it was with the Hop blocker. Now I whirlpool only, no problems with the Therminator.