Awesome Hop Strainer

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TOWEYWACKER

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I know a lot of you throw your hops right in the boil and rack the wort to your primary with residual hop leftovers with no problems at all. I respect that entirely. I also know that stirring your wort vigrously will cause much of your hops to gather at the middle, and thus you are able to rack without much getting in the autosiphon. If your slightly OCD like me, and you want a way to keep the hop sludge out of your fermenter, this little contraption below is a godsend. Now, I know what a lot of you are thinking. "But Towey, putting hops in a bag during the boil doesn't allow for effective alpha acid utilization". This contraption is quite different however. What you see in the picture is a lot like an iceberg...only 10% of its size is above water. This baby has a 5 gallon nylon bag attached to it, so hops can have the complete ability to travel around in the boil and become utilized properly. It causes NO off-flavors and works like a charm. I actually got the idea from right here on HBT, but I thought I would resurrect a thread showing pictures of it, because I know I searched high and low for an idea to CHEAPLY and EFFECTIVELY strain out hops. Hoprockets apparently are a pain, and some metal hop strainers cost around 60 bucks! Total cost for this.....around 20 dollars. Here is a list of the items I used to make mine.
1 4in PVC Street Cleanout Adaptor
1 large Jubilee Clip
3 large screws (I just screwed them right into the plastic
3 rubber hoses to cover the metal of the screws (no off flavors from the metal)
1 large 5 gallon nylon painting strainer bag

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Yep. A hop spider. Lots of folks use them here. They work great.
 
I should migrate to this route rather than using hop bags. I like the idea of the bag so I can squeeze out the absorbed wort, but I don't like dealing with it (or cleaning the bag). Thanks for the pics!
 
I do all my brewing in the garage, so rain is not a problem. However, I never considered the effects of putting the lid over it. Makes perfect sense. I REALLY like the one made from a stainless drain. That is just plain sexy. Thanks for looking out for me day trippr! cheers!
 
day_trippr said:
Good luck with the PVC fitting suspended over boiling wort for an hour or more. You'll probably want to bookmark this thread for future reference...

Cheers! ;)

No problems as long as you don't cover your pot like the guy did in that thread. So many people (including me) have used the pvc coupler with zero problems above boiling wort.
 
No problems as long as you don't cover your pot like the guy did in that thread. So many people (including me) have used the pvc coupler with zero problems above boiling wort.

Excellent. But if you read that whole thread there were a few folks that had problems apparently without lidding their kettles. I'd actually be more concerned with chemicals potentially leaching out of the PVC as steam condensed on it and dripped back into the kettle, if that can happen...

Cheers!
 
I made my spider from stainless steel too (all of it, except the bag)... The hardest part of it was drilling (and tapping) the cake form ring for the legs.

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Everything else was sourced from McMaster-Carr... You could get most of it (probably) from places like Home Depot, or Lowe's, but I know McMaster-Carr has everything I needed. Didn't cost that much to make either. Most expensive part was the stainless cake form ring (Amazon)...

Using the 6" ring, I have plenty of room to pour hops in. With the bags I have, I can be sure to fit as many hops as I'll ever use in there. I used 4oz of pellet hops in the batch brewed on Saturday, and the bag had plenty of room left for more. I could have easily used 8oz of hops in there without issue. I seriously doubt I'll do that for my current batch size. Once I go to 10 gallon batches, I'll just use a larger bag and not worry about it. :ban:
 
I built one of these and it sucked. I see all these photos where your bag is all open.. but the one and only time I tried to use it the bag immediately bunched up once I got a boil going / caught in the current, thus bunching up the hops near the surface and I feel I got really poor utilization (~16oz hops) compared to free hopping it. Halfway through I tried to weight it down by throwing a piece of copper pipe in it, it helped but.. overall unimpressed by this gadget.

Unless I'm doing something wrong that you guys who love these things know? The only thing I could think of was some sort of stainless chicken wire stuff used to give it some structure to hold against just collapsing. By the time you've done that might as well make something different like a giant "tea ball" of stainless mesh.

Anyway, just a counterpoint to this as I was pretty disappointed this summer with this thing after reading all the hype. Again, maybe I'm missing something.
 
I built one of these and it sucked. I see all these photos where your bag is all open.. but the one and only time I tried to use it the bag immediately bunched up once I got a boil going / caught in the current, thus bunching up the hops near the surface and I feel I got really poor utilization (~16oz hops) compared to free hopping it. Halfway through I tried to weight it down by throwing a piece of copper pipe in it, it helped but.. overall unimpressed by this gadget.

Unless I'm doing something wrong that you guys who love these things know? The only thing I could think of was some sort of stainless chicken wire stuff used to give it some structure to hold against just collapsing. By the time you've done that might as well make something different like a giant "tea ball" of stainless mesh.

Anyway, just a counterpoint to this as I was pretty disappointed this summer with this thing after reading all the hype. Again, maybe I'm missing something.

I took the route of making a square from copper pipe to keep the bag open and weigh it down. 4 copper 90's and 4 pieces of 4 inch copper pipe.
 
I've been tryign different things and other than a Stainless Mesh Basket, my favorite idea was to drop a weighted Stainless ring in the bottom. I've even made a cubical frame to stretch the bag over, but getting it to stay open at the top for hop additions AND be able to lower into various heights hasn't worked out so far.

In a 15 gallon keggle, the bag hangs pretty far down in there in a 5 gallon batch. Haven't quite tried the stainless ring in the bottom yet, but I think it could work as long as it doesn't end up standing on it's side.

maybe a combination frame and stainless drain opening with a chain to hang it down to the right depth??
 
ok well I feel a little better that I'm not the only one that's had complications with this thing :eek: what about some chinese lantern kind of thing (the orb/sphere ones) where you knit with some nylon thread rings of different sizes so it opens up when suspended?
 
In a 15 gallon keggle, the bag hangs pretty far down in there in a 5 gallon batch. Haven't quite tried the stainless ring in the bottom yet, but I think it could work as long as it doesn't end up standing on it's side.

Something like this?



I put this together from stainless cake rings and stainless worm clamps (have to be careful to get "all" stainless--the cheaper clamps have zinc screws). I hang it off the side of my kettle, and it keeps its shape pretty well. Clamping the ring at the bottom seems to keep the bag from going sideways.
 
Something like this?



I put this together from stainless cake rings and stainless worm clamps (have to be careful to get "all" stainless--the cheaper clamps have zinc screws). I hang it off the side of my kettle, and it keeps its shape pretty well. Clamping the ring at the bottom seems to keep the bag from going sideways.

Actually, I was picturing using some heavy SS rod bent in a round shape, about 10" across...

I have some thinner wire in a basket shape out in the shop, but my TIG welding skills are not up to it's tiny diameter.

But you've given me an idea...
 
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