8 ounces of hops in a hop spider

I made a hop spider for yesterday's 10 gallon batch. I used a 5 gallon paint strainer and allowed it to hang long into the kettle. My recipe involved 8 ounces of hops. Each addition was 2 ounces (60, 10, 5, whirlpool). When I added my last addition, I dropped the hops in and started the spin using a pump. When I checked the spin a few minutes later, I noticed that about an ounce of hops were still intact and just sitting on the other hops.

I had high hopes for that thing.

Yeah mine gets pretty cramped too. On my next batch I'm going to empty out the hop spider at flameout and then refill for the last addition. I figure the boil is over, so those hops have done their job and considering how clean it makes the process, I'm willing to take a small sacrifice or two.

For 10 gallon batches, I will abandon the spider and use 1 gallon bags for each addition.

They make bigger bags. I'm not sure if the mesh is too coarse, but Austin Homebrew has a jumbo coarse bag that is almost 3 feet long and pretty wide too. I have the bag (don't know why I originally bought it) and will probably try it out on my new 20G pot.

My brewbud and I have run into this issue a couple of times and resolved it by putting the late hops in a separate bag, tie it off at the top and toss it in the boil. It seems our 5 gal bag on the hop spider gets dicey above six (6) ounces.

At a recent Big Brew with more friends, we watched as a couple of our friends used three bags to toss in twelve ounces of late hops in a big batch, on top of those in the hop spider. Really tasty beer the girls wouldn't touch.

BigdogMark said:

At a recent Big Brew with more friends, we watched as a couple of our friends used three bags to toss in twelve ounces of late hops in a big batch, on top of those in the hop spider. Really tasty beer the girls wouldn't touch.

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Are they using 1G paint strainer bags to toss in or 5G? I like this idea. My only concern is the bag getting caught in the diptube (for those with diptubes/pickups). I've had that happen with muslin bags with hops...the whole bag gets sucked into the diptube and clogs it before I can remove it with a spoon.

BrewThruYou said:

I'm not sure if the mesh is too coarse, but Austin Homebrew has a jumbo coarse bag that is almost 3 feet long and pretty wide too.

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I know I'm quoting myself, but has anyone used the AHB jumbo or large coarse bag as a hop spider bag? I compared the mesh to a 5G Lowe's paint strainer and it's a lot coarser. Anyone use one with success? Don't want to clog my plate chiller...

Doh, still no replies. I think the plan for the next beer is use the jumbo coarse bag attached to my hop spider and then toss in hop additions via 1G paint strainer bags into the giant bag. I have tons of 1G and 5G paint strainer bags lying around, so I'll have enough.

If you have a pump, the new method I came up with works awesome.

- Just throw the hops straight in the kettle.
- Save the hop sider/hop bag for the end of the boil, and toss your flameout addition in it.
- Once the flame is off, recirculate the wort back through the hop bag/spider.
- Within 5-10 minutes, all the hops will have collected in the spider, which you can drain and then remove.

But yes, hop spiders work fine for lightly hopped beers. If you brew lots of big IPAs, and DIPAs they don't work so well. I'm much happier with my new method.

scottland said:

If you have a pump, the new method I came up with works awesome.

- Just throw the hops straight in the kettle.
- Save the hop sider/hop bag for the end of the boil, and toss your flameout addition in it.
- Once the flame is off, recirculate the wort back through the hop bag/spider.
- Within 5-10 minutes, all the hops will have collected in the spider, which you can drain and then remove.

But yes, hop spiders work fine for lightly hopped beers. If you brew lots of big IPAs, and DIPAs they don't work so well. I'm much happier with my new method.

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This, but I actually wait till its cool before collecting in a bag. The only time I used a hop spider during the boil, after recirculated chilling I removed them and found the hop gunk was still sitting at over 100* which certainly doesn't help with rapid cooling.

Waiting till after its cooled does NOT work with whole hops though. I noticed at temperatures above 150* I could recirculate whole cone hops with no problem (it was even fun to watch them shoot through the silicone hose) but since it dipped below 150* it just clogged and pissed me off

Hopefully these will work!

The recirculation method sounds like it would be a great solution. I could attach my bag to my whirlpool fitting and brew as usual. It may prevent the actual whirlpool action, but if it is removing hops, then the result is the same.

Inside my kettle, the curved one is the whirlpool return fitting...

scottland said:

If you have a pump, the new method I came up with works awesome.

- Just throw the hops straight in the kettle.
- Save the hop sider/hop bag for the end of the boil, and toss your flameout addition in it.
- Once the flame is off, recirculate the wort back through the hop bag/spider.
- Within 5-10 minutes, all the hops will have collected in the spider, which you can drain and then remove.

But yes, hop spiders work fine for lightly hopped beers. If you brew lots of big IPAs, and DIPAs they don't work so well. I'm much happier with my new method.

Click to expand...

I do have a pump and a whirlpool fitting on my kettle (haven't brewed with the WP fitting yet). The issue is the plate chiller. In the past, I recirculated with no cooler water running for the last 10-15 minutes of the boil through the tubing and the chiller to sanitize. I was using a hop spider to keep hops out of the chiller.

I guess I could sanitize the chiller another way (starsan or recirculation at beginning of boil pre-hopping) and connect after whirlpool stage. That would leave me at the stage of hops/trub being already in the center of the pot, but I love the simplicity of recirculation during the last 15 as a way of sanitation.

Why not just have a long wooden spoon to stir in the hops in the spider?