Filtering out hops

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noisy123

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My LHBS carries mainly pellet hops. I plan on upgrading to full boils and using a CFC to do the cooling. My system would be gravity fed. Would I need to use a hop-stopper of some sort? Should I use a hop-bag? Thanks for your help.
 
I hope I'm not violating some protocol by adding my related question to this thread. I also used hop pellets in my last brew, and because of their milled nature they were clogging up my strainer totally, and not allowing the wort to flow through as I was putting it in the carboy. I was using the plastic snap-in filter that came with the funnel and I should have changed to the metal mesh strainer from the kitchen, but instead I just pulled out the plastic strainer and let it all go into the carboy.

What kind of impact does this have on the final product? It's a doppelbock fermenting at about 66 F at the moment. Been in there 3.5 days now.
 
I hope I'm not violating some protocol by adding my related question to this thread. I also used hop pellets in my last brew, and because of their milled nature they were clogging up my strainer totally, and not allowing the wort to flow through as I was putting it in the carboy. I was using the plastic snap-in filter that came with the funnel and I should have changed to the metal mesh strainer from the kitchen, but instead I just pulled out the plastic strainer and let it all go into the carboy.

What kind of impact does this have on the final product? It's a doppelbock fermenting at about 66 F at the moment. Been in there 3.5 days now.

not much, most of it will settle into the cake, especially if you cold crash it. rack carefully to a secondary for a week if you really cant stand a few pieces of hop in your teeth.:D
 
Or not. You can dump and leave the hops in the fermenter with no worries. They will settle out and will not hurt your beer in any way.
 
Don't try to get 100% of the contents of your brewpot into the fermenter. I usually leave 1/4 gallon or so in the brewpot

Either siphon (with one of those autosiphons with the cap on the business end) or pour very slowly to minimize hops and trub in your fermenter.

What gets into your fermenter will settle out anyway, evne if looks awful initially.

Good luck!
 
I was using the plastic snap-in filter that came with the funnel and I should have changed to the metal mesh strainer from the kitchen, but instead I just pulled out the plastic strainer and let it all go into the carboy.

I pulled a similar maneuver on my batch last night. I felt fairly comfortable pouring most of the hop gunk in, since a good number of brewers seem to think it all settles out and it's all good. On the other hand, there seems to be more disagreement over this subject than almost any other...and that's a lot, because homebrewers disagree about everything. Some folks are using hop bags and siphoning to primary with a filter over their tubing...others are just going bombs away and dumping it all in the carboy. What gives? I'm not sure my question is really going anywhere. Maybe I just want to be reassured that my batch will be ok, because there's already a crazy amount of crud on the bottom.
 
I use a nylon grain bag for the hops. I tie it to the brew pot handle so it doesn't touch bottom and when it's time ti add additional hops I just untie it and dump the hops in the bag and retie. Works great and keeps hop trub out of wort. the usual mesh hop bags are useless.

DC
 
I pulled a similar maneuver on my batch last night. I felt fairly comfortable pouring most of the hop gunk in, since a good number of brewers seem to think it all settles out and it's all good. On the other hand, there seems to be more disagreement over this subject than almost any other...and that's a lot, because homebrewers disagree about everything. Some folks are using hop bags and siphoning to primary with a filter over their tubing...others are just going bombs away and dumping it all in the carboy. What gives? I'm not sure my question is really going anywhere. Maybe I just want to be reassured that my batch will be ok, because there's already a crazy amount of crud on the bottom.

Nah. This one is actually fairly easy. If you want to really start a holy war, ask about bottling v. kegging. Although brewers don't seem to do holy wars as well as other geeks (e.g., emacs v. vi). I guess we just have a few beers and don't really care enough after that.

The reason for the difference in opinion, in my mind, is that brewing beer is a fairly robust process. You can do lots of things differently and still end up with good beer. So when you ask a question like "Should I filter my hops?", the answers you get are what other people have found works well for them. As humans are fairly clever monkeys, we have found lots of different ways so you will get lots of different answers.

Your beer will be fine. I haven't filtered my wort ever. The only thing I might suggest, if the clarity bothers you, is to wrap a paint filter around your auto-siphon when you transfer the beer to secondary or to the bottling bucket. It makes a pleasant difference in the clarity of the beer. If you don't mind a cloudy beer then don't worry about it and just rack carefully.

HTH,
Mik
 
Nah. This one is actually fairly easy. If you want to really start a holy war, ask about bottling v. kegging. Although brewers don't seem to do holy wars as well as other geeks (e.g., emacs v. vi). I guess we just have a few beers and don't really care enough after that.

The reason for the difference in opinion, in my mind, is that brewing beer is a fairly robust process. You can do lots of things differently and still end up with good beer. So when you ask a question like "Should I filter my hops?", the answers you get are what other people have found works well for them. As humans are fairly clever monkeys, we have found lots of different ways so you will get lots of different answers.

Your beer will be fine. I haven't filtered my wort ever. The only thing I might suggest, if the clarity bothers you, is to wrap a paint filter around your auto-siphon when you transfer the beer to secondary or to the bottling bucket. It makes a pleasant difference in the clarity of the beer. If you don't mind a cloudy beer then don't worry about it and just rack carefully.

HTH,
Mik

Ahhhhhh...thank you, sweet reassurance. Noobs need lots of tender words.

I will take the advice about filtering my siphon, but I was actually going to cut out the secondary this time. I want to see for myself the effects of secondary vs. long primary. With some firsthand knowledge, I'll better equipped to enter that brewer debate---and hopefully speed through to the couple of beers and apathy part.
 
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