DIY Hopback

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Dr_Deathweed

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Needed:

2 male 3/8" barbs
1 female 3"8" barb
1 3/8" compression cap
4 #11 O-rings
Hose clamps
stainless steel braid
1 mason jar
a couple of spare lids
Teflon tape
some spare hose


I decided to make this since I never seem to get the hop aroma I am looking for with my current setup. I figured go ahead and give this a shot, because if nothing else I am only out $20 in parts, most of which I can easily use for something else.

First I took a mason jar lid and drilled a couple holes in it. I suggest having some spares because if you don't have the lid secured or your drill going fast enough you will shred the thin metal of the lid. I used a dremel tool to enlarge the holes the slight amount needed to fit the barbs in.
hopback1.JPG

One of the holes uses 1 male and 1 female barb with a couple O-rings, while the other uses the male and compression cap.
hopback2.JPG

The idea here is that hot wort from the kettle comes in one side (the side with the compression cap) and leaves through the other the 2-barbed side which will have the stainless steel braid attached.
hopback3.JPG

I did a simple test run with water and it seemed to work great with no leaks or anything. The leak in the picture is from the march pump since I didnt use any hoseclamps on the hoses yet.
hopback4.JPG

I stopped here tonight since I need to make dinner, but my next step will be placing the braid over the dip-tube. This way I can fill the jar with my hops and fill it half full with wort, hook up my march pump on the outlet, and draw from my boil kettle, through the hop back with the march pump, and into my CFC.

After I finish making it I will do a more elaborate test run, and use it in its inaugural brew of an IPA to enter into Edworts IPA competition this summer :D I will post more pics as I go and answer any questions that may arise.
 
My concern would be the glass breaking from the boiling hot wort. It may be a good idea to pre heat the jar.
 
That is a Mason canning jar that when used for its intended purpose is boiled in an enamel canning pot to sanitize it. I suspect it can withstand boiling temperatures.
 
It may be a good idea to see what happens if you pour boiling water into it at room temps, or outdoor (potentially cold) brewing temps, the boiling for snaitization method heats more slowly and evenly.
-Ben
 
That is a Mason canning jar that when used for its intended purpose is boiled in an enamel canning pot to sanitize it. I suspect it can withstand boiling temperatures.

My thoughts exactly.

It may be a good idea to see what happens if you pour boiling water into it at room temps, or outdoor (potentially cold) brewing temps, the boiling for snaitization method heats more slowly and evenly.
-Ben

As long as you are not going from the freezer to boiling you should be fine. I have used these jars for holding hot grease out of frier's on multiple occasions. But, in order to "prime" the system, the jar needs to have some liquid in it, which can serve as your pre-warming step for those that live in climates where it dips below 30deg more often than 1 day every 2 years :D
 
I would consider adding a round piece of steel (large fender washer?) to the top of the cap to give a more solid base for the fittings to attach.
 
I would consider adding a round piece of steel (large fender washer?) to the top of the cap to give a more solid base for the fittings to attach.

I had thought of that but I ran into a space issue due to the diameter of the washers and the diameter of the lid with both holes. You can probable fit the washers if you use 1/4" fittings with 3/8" barbs, but HD was out of these when i went and bout the parts.

As of now, I plan on finishing this tonight and posting pictures, and doing a test brew this weekend.
 
I've seen canning jars explode when hot grease was poured into them at room temp. I'd pre-heat it, myself. When you can with them, you are heating them more evenly than you are when pouring boiling liquid into it.
 
I've seen canning jars explode when hot grease was poured into them at room temp. I'd pre-heat it, myself. When you can with them, you are heating them more evenly than you are when pouring boiling liquid into it.


I am fairly certain all breakage issues will be null when this is put in practice for the following reasons:

1) Its all in technique. When pouring hot grease in a jar as I mentioned above, the trick is to put a fork in the jar and pour the grease slowly over the fork. This spreads the grease out slowly over the fork before it hits the jar, distributing heat and allowing the jar to warm up (albeit rapidly) before the majority of the hot liquid hits the glass.

In this case the hops will do the same thing. this jar will be full of hops which the hot wort (no where close to 300deg grease) which will both absorb some initial heat and distribute wort over a larger area at first allowing the glass to warm a bit more slowly than just dumping it in boiling liquid.

2) for this system to work, the jar needs to be "primed" with a little bit of liquid so it will work with the march pump. I can either prime with star san (over the hops, mmmmm, maybe not...) or with a little hot wort from the kettle... Now you can control the flow of liquid into the jar, over the hops, and pre-warm the jar before full flow of hot wort commences.
 
Update on the project:

I bought a nylon braided hose instead of a SS one on accident, then did some minor re-designs with the SS braid, that is why I have been negligent in posting here.

I did use it yesterday, and after some minor tweaking it worked great! I found it works better post-pump rather than pre-pump, and you have to be a little carefull packing in large amounts of hops because it can reduce flow quite a bit (I orriginaly had 2oz leaf and 1.5oz pellet in there... while it worked it was REAL slow :D). Once I figgured that out it worked like a charm! I still have some minor tweaks, but overall am very happy with it. Pics will follow as shortly, as I need to get them off my camera :D
 
I've thought about building a hopback, using one of those water filter containers. It's one of the reasons that I really want to get a pump.

Any reason that you couldn't design a hopback that could be used both in brewing AND as a Randall for serving? Probably need to intregrate some quick-disconnects, but it's the same basic principal, right? Wort/beer in; mix with a crapton of hops; wort/beer out.
 
I don't think there is any reason that you couldn't, but my design here may not be the best for that. One of the tweaks that I have to make is to fix some minor leakage since the lid is so thin. It works well with the wort since I am not worried about loosing an ounce or two out of an 11 gallon batch, but any leak on a randal will become large over time either in terms of your beer or CO2.
 
As promised, here are pictures:

hopback5.JPG
These are the additional parts for the braid, I ended up making a loop instead of using a straight braid. I will update the parts list in the first post at some point.

hopback6.JPG
The finished braid.

hopback7.JPG
The "finished" product. Like I said, I may tweak one or two things, like trying to add a washer on the upper seals to try and stop all leakage, but as of now with 11 gallons I only lost maybe 2-3 ounces out the leak. Its very slow, but present, so it will be fixed.

hopback8.JPG
Sanitizing before use. I just shook up some star-san in it then threw it in between my pump and CFC after filling it with hops. I also learned when using the hops to pack them in loosely and not just cram everything in.

hopback9.JPG
In action! At this point the flow was a trickle through my CFC because you can see everything compacted around my braid at the bottom. This was due to 1)the ass load of hops I put in for a trial run, and 2) I put the hops in the jar first, then put the braid and lid on which compacted everything below the braid. I stopped flow and carefully removed the lid and swung it aside just enough to stir up everything on the bottom of the jar so it was less compacted, put it all together and restarted flow. It worked well after that.
 
I don't think there is any reason that you couldn't, but my design here may not be the best for that. One of the tweaks that I have to make is to fix some minor leakage since the lid is so thin. It works well with the wort since I am not worried about loosing an ounce or two out of an 11 gallon batch, but any leak on a randal will become large over time either in terms of your beer or CO2.

That's why I was thinking the water filter-based design, it should be able to hold the pressure. I might well leave it hooked up in the kegerator, so leaks are unacceptable.

Need to buy the pump first, though; unfortunately, I just blew through my father's day present a few weeks early this past weekend!
 
That's why I was thinking the water filter-based design, it should be able to hold the pressure. I might well leave it hooked up in the kegerator, so leaks are unacceptable.

Need to buy the pump first, though; unfortunately, I just blew through my father's day present a few weeks early this past weekend!

Yeah, I have heard of the water filter based design for randals, but I don’t know if the same design would work for the hopback. I just don’t know if those filters are designed to handle the temperatures.
 
Could you use this same design, lay the jar on its side assuming no leaks and have a SS braid laying down the side of the jar to gravity feed the hopback and that way you wouldn't have to buy a pump?
 
I'm interested in the results of this and similar setups. Do you truly see a noticeable difference in hop aroma, flavor, and retention over time??
 
This was a great thread i went and got all the parts but i have a few questions on hop backs in general, First is this only for Hot wort to run through or could you Hook this up to a kegeraitor? I usually only set my kegeraitor at 8-12 PSI if i hooked this up between the Keg and the tap would this work and hold pressure? Also would i get anything out of this or would the first two beers be super hopy aroma and the rest just be Blah?
 
This was a great thread!! i went and got all the parts but i have a few questions on hop backs in general, First is this only for Hot wort to run through or could you Hook this up to a kegeraitor? I usually only set my kegeraitor at 8-12 PSI if i hooked this up between the Keg and the tap would this work and hold the pressure? Also would i get anything out of this or would the first two beers be super hopy aroma and the rest just be Blah?
 
I'm envisioning the glass mason jar exploding into a million pieces and hot wort being sprayed throughout my garage... no?
 
I'm envisioning the glass mason jar exploding into a million pieces and hot wort being sprayed throughout my garage... no?

Why? Mason jars are pretty robust. They can handle the heat (canning involves boiling them), these small pumps cant put out much pressure etc.
 
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