Anyone Recirculate Through Hop Strainer?

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Douglefish

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So I have been thinking lately about changing how I clarify my wort before going into the fermenter. I am wondering if anyone does this, or have thoughts? I'm thinking this could reduce my loss in the boil kettle?

Current Setup
Use a paint strainer bag in BK for Hop additions
My pickup tube in my kettle is on the side so I can whirlpool
I remove my hop bag at the end of boil
Whirlpool and then leave the break material and about a gallon of wort in the bottom of the kettle

Proposed Idea
Use a paint strainer bag in BK for Hop additions
Change my pickup tube to be in the bottom/middle of my BK
Run my pump output to go into the hop strainer
After the boil recirculate the wort through the strainer to remove all break material
run off into the fermenter through my plate chiller
 
I used to strain my wort through a strainer full of a mixture of new and spent hops from the brew. Yeah, hops are a good filter. I now use a false bottom in my kettle that does all that work for me. Hops fall onto the top of the FB and increase the filter capabilities.

The first beer that I racked to a keg with this method shocked me. Yeast cake was tight and compact and only about 1/4" thick. There was virtually zero trub, all yeast.
 
I plan to recirculate through the hop bag while it's still in the wort. My hop would be the bag is big enough to hold all the break material and still drain, but if not I could definitely dump the hop matter and then try again.

I'll post once I try it
 
Here is the inside of my kettle. You can see how the hops would form a nice filter atop the false bottom and it filters out almost all trub in one pass.

2448-kettle.jpg
 
Doesn't a false bottom need whole hops to create a filter bed? I typically only use pellet
 
I can tell you from direct experience with a Blichmann false bottom in my BK and a Therminator that you will have no absolutely no luck with pellet hops and a false bottom. None whatsoever. You will feel much pain.

However, with whole leaf, especially whole intact cones, you will have limited to full success with this approach. If your whole leaf is kind of ratty and the cones are mostly destroyed, you will get a very slow flow. It only takes a few leaves to plug up the therminator. My best success has been with whole leaf and a hopstopper but I've had good results with a large hopsack/pellets combined with the blichmann false bottom/intact whole leaf.

Here's a pic of my original hopsack holder which uses the smaller hopsack. Since then I've cut it down to allow for the use of the larger hopsacks which has helped some with utilization. It's still not as nice as free hop pellets in the wort but I've gone to a whirlpool and an IC for bigger pellet loads with good success.

photo-6.jpg


As you can see this approach works (this batch had a schit-ton of pellet hop, it was essentially a Ruination clone) but utilization may be effected somewhat by the hopsack approach

photo-8.jpg
 
I was hoping to be able to get the hop sack to filter out the break material before going to the fermenter. I recirculated through the hop sack and it looks like the break material is much to small to be caught by the paint strainer bag.

To bad, but worth a try. Looks like I'm going to still be whirlpooling :(
 
Just curious, so you don't buy into the Hot Break = Bad philosophy?


Cold break for me - I usually skim as much of the hot break as I can get to in the early boil stages. I've never had any issues leaving the break in.

It's protein, which is an essential building block of life. We want the unstable protein out of the beer for shelf life and clarity, but the yeast most likely feed on it. It has been written about, some say yeah others no. Do a google for some reading info.
 
I have a JZ style recirculating immersion chiller. I use a 5 gallon paint strainer around my immersion chiller, so anything that is free roaming is pumped from the bottom of the kettle into the bag with the hops, to ensure a clean wort transfer. It's not perfect, but It does a good job of removing hops from the wort.

I don't mind the break in there for the aforementioned reasons, I just don't like 1/2 gallon of junk that is eating up what would otherwise be head space.
 
I did this exact same thing on my last couple brews. I personally use pellet hops which is the only way this will work from what I can tell. I use a pump to recirculate boiling wort from my boil pot through my CFC (to sanitize the loop) and return back into the a hop bag in my pot. I Let the pump run full tilt which means I turn over the entire pot volume a few times resulting in all the gunk getting put in the bag rather then back into the pot / fermenter. The bag free drains into the pot as needed. As I have a CFC with 3/8 tubing, I don't worry about plugging a plate chiller when doing the recirc. The hop debris is suspended in the fluid as its flowing around. When I know I turned over the pot volume a couple times, I turn on the tap water and play with the valve settings to get my pitching temperature set on the return. I then divert flow from the pot directly to my fermenter via return vslves. I can then quickly pump / collect the entire pot leaving the bag in the pot with all the gunk left behind. This worked so well with a bag that I bought a ss 300 mesh hop strainer that now acts as the bag noted above. This eliminates the need to whirlpool from what I can tell as well. Some protein does stay is solution but FAR less. One could possibly do this recirc with a plate chiller out of the loop for the turn over period and then add it in once you know all the gunk is in the bag thus minimizing the plugging of a plate chiller.
 
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