straining

Hey guys, new to the form.

I have a few batches of partial mashes under my belt now. I had a difficult time straining wort into my primary fermenter the other day. I don't know if it was because my grain bag was compromised, or if it was the large amount of hop pellets I used, but I used two strainers and still had to clean them both out several times to get all the fluid in. I am just concerned about contamination due to the amount of time spent poring, and the numerous attempts at cleaning the strainers. I infected a batch of wine this way one time. Any ideas?

Thanks, and nice to meet all of you.

Welcome to HBT!
I just toss the whole thing in the primary without straining or siphoning. Everything ends up in a compact pile on the bottom by the time I'm ready to rack it to bottling bucket or kegs.

I strained the kolsch I made on sunday by washing out the grainbag while the boil was going, sanitizing it, then straining by opening up the bag, placing it in the funnel, pulling the open end of the bag over the funnel. I poued the wort through the bag then gathered up the bag and lifted the whole mess out.

If you're using bucket, this likely won't work for you...

Hey there - I found out this weekend that hop pellets really clog up a strainer. Whole hop leaves are much easier to work with. I ended up being able to get the majority of my extract wort into a carboy and leave a funnel full of hop sludge. Honestly, I don't know if there's a better solution other than trying to stay away from pellets. If you find something, please post so I can adjust my system.

I imagined transferring all that crud into the primary would effect flavor. I know that could be a good thing as well..

I saw on another post around here somewhere that someone was using a paint strainer bag that fit onto a 5-gal. bucket. I have a bucket fermenter, so that seemed like a great idea to me! The wire strainer I had used was kind of a pain in the butt. Definitely going to try the paint bag on my next brew!

There is really no reason to strain your wort other than it makes your trub layer smaller by straining. I figure I'm going to have trub anyway so I don't really care if the trub is 1 or 2 inches deep.

What if one would like to harvest yeast from the primary, would it be better to strain the wort?

My practice is the same I just pour it all in the primary, from what I understand it is healthier for the yeasties. However, I have a stout in the primary right now, and I was thinking of making my first attempt to harvest yeast for my next brew.