Hop mesh bag

Brewing my second batch tomorrow or Sunday. For my first one I just added the hop pellets straight to the boil and didn't keep them filtered or anything. Everything was fine, but just hate having all the gunk floating in the wort and fermenter. I have not bought the nylon or mesh bags that would probably be best to be able to remove the hops completely. Any bags or something I can use or get from a local store safe for a boil?

They've got nylon grain bags made for it. I bought a couple after doing my first brew and having the same thoughts as you.

hop pellets DO get added to the boil straight.. no bag, filter or otherwise..
use a pasta sieve to filter the detritus when ya pour it into your primary after the boil...

I use a paint strainer from home depot for my steeping grains and my hop additions. For my hops I just keep adding to one bag at different times in the boil. It has worked fine for me and they are easy to clean. Just make sure you wash them well and sterelize before use.

CaveBrewing said:

I use a paint strainer from home depot for my steeping grains and my hop additions. For my hops I just keep adding to one bag at different times in the boil. It has worked fine for me and they are easy to clean. Just make sure you wash them well and sterilize before use.

Click to expand...

+1 Except-no need to sterilize prior to use, sterilization will happen in the boil.

I made one of these

I used to use the hop bags in the boil but then went to using the paint strainers in the fermenter. The latter way is easier for me. Just do your normal boil and throw all your hops right in the kettle. Then, after you have cooled the wort, place a sanitized paint strainer in your fermentation bucket and pour everything from your kettle into the bucket. As you pour, you can try to keep as much trub out of the fermenter as you can but don't worry about it too much. Then remove the strainer bag and allow it to drain a bit over your bucket. Most, if not all the used hops and trub will remain in the bag and not in your beer.

I will second the paint strainer bags. I use the 5G size and double them up. Does a good job of keeping hop material out of the fermenter.

Jason

Cool thanks for all the input. Decided to just throw the hops in to the boil. So far so good. Will filter when I move out of primary.