Hops and Grain Bags

Does anyone use grain bags to boil their pellet hops in? I have been doing it for a while, but an owner of a different HBS just told me "nobody boils hops in grain bags."

He claimed that utilization will be off by 50% or something...I just have a hard time believing that is the case. Anyone?

chachi said:

Does anyone use grain bags to boil their pellet hops in? I have been doing it for a while, but an owner of a different HBS just told me "nobody boils hops in grain bags."

He claimed that utilization will be off by 50% or something...I just have a hard time believing that is the case. Anyone?

Click to expand...

Tell him your not buying twice the hops and see what he has to say LOL

I just started boiling hops in the small mesh bags. It was great when I was racking to the carboy. Just the cold break at the bottom was great. I can not remark on the hops utilization going down as of yet, but I find it hard to believe that the bag would make a difference. I know there are a lot of people that use a paint strainer as a hop bag, so if it did make a difference I am sure that they would have stopped using it.

It's really a matter of personal choice...the utilization difference is very negligable., if it were 50% then why would places sell them???

I use to use them all the time, but now I strain into a mesh paint bucket strainer, so i just chuck everything into the pot....there are some nifty hop kettle bag plans on here...I don't know if Orfy finished updating the DIY section today, but try the search for Hop Kettle Bag or something...if it nocked back utilization that much, why would so many people use them as well???

THe LHBS guy probably just didn't want to get off his a$$ to get you some, or forgot to order any...

well, I am not sure he could have stood up off his a$$ as he probably tips the scales at around 400+. He was the subject of discussion in another thread a week or two ago and I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I would stop in and pick up a couple of things I needed...one of which was some grain bags. He had a bunch of different bags and started telling me that the cotton ones were better and I told him I was using it for hops in my boil. That was when he came out with the super cool blanket statement. Doesn't seem to make much sense to me, but I figured I would see what everyone's thoughts were.

If I'm fermenting in a carboy I am more likely to use hopsacks, because straining with a funnel into the carboy is a pita....but I do the majority of my beers in my buckets anyway.

that dude has a history of spewing misinformation.

It's bad when a cat from Omaha knows about a certain controversial, obese homebrew employee in northern California.