Christmas Brew

I just finished my Two Hearted Ale clone. I had a problem though, with draining/siphoning from my keggle. The hop bill was so high that the spigot quickly clogged. So I switched to the siphon with a stainless steel pad on the end of it. With about 1.5 gallons left I lost the siphon. The damn thing clogged up again. By this point I had mucked with it so much I was worried about contamination and decided to just count my losses and take what I had managed to get. I pitched it with a starter I had made using yeast from a Two Hearted bottle I brought back from Wisconsin. After I ate X-mas dinner I went back and checked on it and it was already bubbling in the air lock! After today, I think I'm going to invest in one of those bazooka filters.

I use the hopstopper, never had any problems with it even with lots of hops (I use whole leaf hops) It has yet to let me down you might look into one of those.

budbo said:

I use the hopstopper, never had any problems with it even with lots of hops (I use whole leaf hops) It has yet to let me down you might look into one of those.

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Thanks I'll check that out.
Would that work with pellet hops as well?
On this batch I used a combo of pellet and whole leaf hops.

use a hop bag in addition to a hop stopper or similar. put pellet hops in the hop bag. leaf hops can go straight into the boil. the hop stopper or bazooka type strainer will stop the leaf hops. the bag stops the pellet hops.

many folks make a hop bag holder contraption from a large diameter pvc pipe coupling, a stainless hose clamp, and threaded rod arms to suspend it over the top of the kettle. use the hose clamp to clamp the open hop bag to the coupling. this keeps the top of the hop bag open up over the level of liquid in the kettle so you can make hop additions throughout the boil. I'm sure someone will post a picture of one.

billtzk said:

use a hop bag in addition to a hop stopper or similar. put pellet hops in the hop bag. leaf hops can go straight into the boil. the hop stopper or bazooka type strainer will stop the leaf hops. the bag stops the pellet hops.

many folks make a hop bag holder contraption from a large diameter pvc pipe coupling, a stainless hose clamp, and threaded rod arms to suspend it over the top of the kettle. use the hose clamp to clamp the open hop bag to the coupling. this keeps the top of the hop bag open up over the level of liquid in the kettle so you can make hop additions throughout the boil. I'm sure someone will post a picture of one.

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Ive seen pics of that type of set up. I would have used a hop bag but the hop additions were done in 15 min stages and I only had one hop sock.