pellet hops dont like ball valves!

the last two brews i made my conical fermenters valves clogged. i figured the first time (belgian) was because of the hops and coriander sinking and expanding in the valve but the last brew i made (iipa) i put the hops in a bag except for 1 ounce and they still clogged a little. to unclogg the belgian i try'd blowing on the valve "as bad as that is" but it still woudnt work. i ended up having to take the top off and unclog it like a toilet with a coat hanger. the double ipa i just took the hose barb's off and sanitized a paper clip, shook that around in their a bit and wallah, free flowing beer. the belgian turned out great even after blowing in the bottom valve. the double ipa is bottle conditioning right now after being dry hoped for 7 days. in about 6 weeks ill crack one of those open. anyways, i hate pellet hops. for my next batch im gonna try whole hops. or just not drink so much while brewing and putt all the hops in a bag like im supposed too.

In the future you could use a bit of c02 to blow back. Sounds like you bottle though.

The paper clip sounds like it worked out great though!

Muslin bags are a 1.29 a piece at my lhbs. thats the best dollar twenty nine i spend for two batches. I also only use whole hops. I dont like the mess of pellet hops.

Pellet hops don't like much of anything.

FWIW, my LHBS has a very limited selection of whole hops, as well as plugs. Great selection of pellets. So I end up using pellets for most everything.

Don't mean to jack the thread but, is there a significant reduction in hops efficiency when using nylon or muslin bags?

In addition to using hop bags I also open the conical bottom dump after a couple days to get rid of the settlement. Then I do it again a couple days after again right before I harvest yeast. I have waited a week once and when I opened the valve, nothing came out. I opened a little more and the pressure of 11 gallons squirted a stream 13 feet across my kitchen. Drain your conical a couple days after racking so you dont get clogs or money shots on your walls.

i had a little goop on the racking port and it shot me right in the eye once.

im gonna switch to whole hops, hops direct! 5 or 6 different types should do for a while.

trailblazer said:

i had a little goop on the racking port and it shot me right in the eye once.

im gonna switch to whole hops, hops direct! 5 or 6 different types should do for a while.

Click to expand...

+1 for hopsdirect, as soon as I get my **** together I will be making a purchase from them as well!

tdavisii said:

Muslin bags are a 1.29 a piece at my lhbs. thats the best dollar twenty nine i spend for two batches. I also only use whole hops. I dont like the mess of pellet hops.

Click to expand...

I agree - muslin bags are the way to go!

What kind of filter do you have on the kettle? Are you whirlpooling in the kettle to minimize trub transfer?

Schnitzengiggle said:

FWIW, my LHBS has a very limited selection of whole hops, as well as plugs. Great selection of pellets. So I end up using pellets for most everything.

Don't mean to jack the thread but, is there a significant reduction in hops efficiency when using nylon or muslin bags?

Click to expand...

Since pellets get a 10% boost in efficiency I usually consider them as whole when doing my calculations to make up for inefficiencies because of the nylon bag I use

niquejim said:

Since pellets get a 10% boost in efficiency I usually consider them as whole when doing my calculations to make up for inefficiencies because of the nylon bag I use

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, that makes perfect sense.

FWIW, When I was partial boiling I usually didn't cut back on my hop additions even with the Late Extract addition method, and I would say that every beer I made was still well within the IBU guidelines for the style. So better efficiency with pellets + lower efficiency with a partial boil = cancel each other out. Higher efficiency with pellets + hop bag = same conclusion.