Paint strainer bags?

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Zymurgrafi

Zymurgrafi

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Okay, I bought some paint strainer bags to use for straining paint of all things! I am looking at them and I recall seeing the hop straining boil kettle gizmos folks have made on here. I am thinking to myself; self, how the heck would that be of any benefit, the mesh is way to coarse?

Well, how would it? Would not the hop particles just flow right through? I did not see different grades of mesh it was one size fits all essentially. They were for 5 gallon buckets with an elastic top. Am I missing something?
 
Nope they work great. Some stuff gets through, but even with pellets most of the hops stay in the bag because they expand once rehydrated. I don't worry much about break material in the fermenter, but I do like keeping the hops out, it makes racking much easier.
 
The ones Lowe's sell are very fine and work great. The 5 gallon paint strainer is used with a 4"-5" PVC pipe and some legs and a big worm clamp.

HopBagHolder1.JPG


The 1 gallon bags from Lowe's are handy for beers with one or two hop additions. Just put your hops in the bag and tie the end in a knot and toss it in.
 
My Lowes does carry a couple different sieve size bags. I grabbed the fine sieve and they work great.

Although, I opted (after a few close calls) to invert the reducer on my gizmo. I learned with some big hop bills that the worm clamp doesn't hold the bag very well when lifting it out of the wort. Of course, the reducer I have is somewhat tapered on the small end and is smooth walled so, that may have something to do with it.

Kinda looks like Ed ran his threaded rod through the bag too. I didn;t do that. (shrugs)
 
I personally just clip the paint strainer bag to the rim of the kettle with a binder clip. Works great... one less thing to store.
 
EdWort said:
The ones Lowe's sell are very fine and work great. The 5 gallon paint strainer is used with a 4"-5" PVC pipe and some legs and a big worm clamp.

HopBagHolder1.JPG


The 1 gallon bags from Lowe's are handy for beers with one or two hop additions. Just put your hops in the bag and tie the end in a knot and toss it in.
Click to expand...

Yep, thar be the gizmo I be thinkin' of. Arrgh. Oops, sorry momentary pirate slip.

Well, I will look at Lowes I guess. This one I got at my local hardware store. On closer inspection it has a finer weave with finer threads. However it still seems coarser than the nylon hop sacks you get at homebrew shops.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
Kinda looks like Ed ran his threaded rod through the bag too. I didn;t do that. (shrugs)
Click to expand...

Nope. I just attach the bag to the PVC coupler with a worm clamp and drop it in the ring.

HopBagHolder3.JPG


Since it is a 4" to 5" coupler, it sits in the 4" ring just fine.
 
I built something like that. Basically, I took a piece of PVC, drilled a couple of holes in it, and pushed a couple lengths of threaded rod through it. Couple nuts hold the PVC in place. I've got two lengths of rod that run parallel, and that slide right into the handle on the keggle. If I remember, I'll take pics.

My only problem is finding a big enough hop bag (I can only find one gallon paint bags at HD), so I've taken to just putting my hop additions in the small bags and tossing them in and not even using this PVC thing.
 
After messing with different methods of straining out the hop gunk, I went with the 5 gallon straining bag (purchased at the LHBS for too much I'm sure). Just used it on the last batch and it works quite well. I use mine a bit differently though. I put the bag in the fermenting bucket (fits quite nicely don't you know) and just dumped the wort in. Lifted the bag containing all the gunk out of the bucket, and was left with clean and rather well aerated wort. I'm sure other factors played into it, but this batch was my clearest yet.

Chris
 
I haven't built this yet. Do you have to get a new bag after each time you use it or could they be cleaned and reused?
Thanks
 
I just purchased these bags from Lowes and they do not say there made of nylon. The website actually sais material is plastic. Are these the ones everyone on here uses?
 
addis29 said:
I just purchased these bags from Lowes and they do not say there made of nylon. The website actually sais material is plastic. Are these the ones everyone on here uses?
Click to expand...

I probably was mistaken when I said they were nylon.

At any rate, the ones at Lowe's are probably from a company called Trimaco, correct? Those are the ones that people often use.

Coincindentally, my office shares a parking lot with Trimaco. I never knew what the company even did until I bought some strainer bags. :D
 
yes the ones from lowes are distributed by trimaco, but the picture on trimacos website shows a different bag. Lowes bags say finish factor standard paint strainer bags.
 
I went out and checked my paint strainers they say on the package that they are nylon, 5 gallon, fine mesh (85x95). They were 3 for $3. The company that makes them is Reaves they are GT5-3 if that helps... I picked them up at Menards. They work great and clean up nice. I reuse them.
 
ChrisS68 said:
After messing with different methods of straining out the hop gunk, I went with the 5 gallon straining bag (purchased at the LHBS for too much I'm sure). Just used it on the last batch and it works quite well. I use mine a bit differently though. I put the bag in the fermenting bucket (fits quite nicely don't you know) and just dumped the wort in. Lifted the bag containing all the gunk out of the bucket, and was left with clean and rather well aerated wort. I'm sure other factors played into it, but this batch was my clearest yet.

Chris
Click to expand...

This is what I would like to do. How do you sanitize? Boil? Starsan?
 
Flywheel said:
This is what I would like to do. How do you sanitize? Boil? Starsan?
Click to expand...

I do the same as him. I keep the strainer in my sanitizer solution during the boil, then after the wort is chilled to pitching temp i siphon it thru the paint strainer to the fermenting bucket.
 

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