Pellet hop headache brew - seeking advice using these hops

Hi Guys,

a couple of weeks ago i did my first brew using pellet hops, well actually a mix of pellet and whole leaf. Up till now I've only used 100% whole leaf without issues. The reason for getting pellet hops is that my homebrew shop didn't have all the varieties I wanted in whole leaf form.

This brew was a messy disaster, everything was going okay until it came to draining my boiler. First I tried pumping over to the fermenter but within seconds the filter was clogged with the pellet hops. I then tried to use the autosyphon but the leaf hops clogged that. Eventially I had to resort to pouring it out through a kitchen sifter in small batches, clearing the sifter after each pour. I did my best to minimise infection and it seems to have fermented okay and the sample I took the other day didn't show any signs of infection (fingers crossed it will stay that way)

Naturally I'm now very nervous about using pellet hops again, i have another brew planned for the Easter weekend and the recipe once again calls for these hops so I'm desperately trying to figure out how i can effectively drain the boiler without too much of an issue.

I fear that my equipment doesn't lend itself well to using these hops. My boiler is the second one on this page but i've modified it so that there is a copper tube which goes down into the element sump so that i don't waste the few litres of liquid left down there. There's a couple of other modifications, i'll post a picture tonight when i'm home from work. The pump I use is only a small one and I don't think it would handle the pellets very well if I allowed the sludge to go through it.

Is there perhaps anything (bag?) which can contain the hops during the boil but still allow good liquid flow to the hops thus not harm the utilisation too much? any other recommendations?

Sounds like you need to use a hop bag. Often found at your LHBS. They work great for containing hop debris. At the end of the boil, just remove the bag and the hops go with it. I always use a hop bag. Happy brewing.

EDIT: The copper tube that you added that goes down into the sump well is probably sucking up debris from the well. I would remove the copper tube and put the screen back on. After the boil, the trub will settle into the well.

You can also look around these forums for the hop spider thread.

It is in the equipment forum I believe but it is nothing more than the bag that Bumbler mentioned with its mouth clamped around a peice of PVC or something and a few bolts going into the pvc. that way it sits on the rim of your kettle while you boil, you throw hops in it as needed then at the end you just pull it out and that should greatly reduce any pellet gunk in your wort.

I need to invest in making one since my siphon gets plugged up each brew day.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/hop-spider-387245/

Bumbler said:

Sounds like you need to use a hop bag. Often found at your LHBS. They work great for containing hop debris. At the end of the boil, just remove the bag and the hops go with it. I always use a hop bag. Happy brewing.

EDIT: The copper tube that you added that goes down into the sump well is probably sucking up debris from the well. I would remove the copper tube and put the screen back on. After the boil, the trub will settle into the well.

Click to expand...

Do you the muslin bags or the finer mesh nylon for pellet hops? I use muslin for leaf and have the fine mesh nylon bags but worry about hop utilization with the finer mesh.