Whirlpools methods and benefits

I recently built a 15gallon ebiab rims system. It's great. It really sped up my brew day from approx 8hrs to 5 hours and 30 mins approximately. A problem I'm finding is how long it takes to fill the carboy. I have stainless steel mesh on the inside of the brew kettle faucet and there is a mesh on the carboy funnel also. However it takes ages to fill the carboy. The mesh screens quickly get covered in hop trub and I find myself standing over the funnel with a sanitized spoon scrap the mesh to allow the wort to pass through. Mt question is regarding solutions to this problem in particular in regards to a whirlpool and will this solve my problems. I have heard mixed reviews and would like to hear some first hand experience. This is my system as you can see but since I use the lobster basket there is no room in the side of the kettle for another hose attachment so I will have to use the lid. Amy help or or advice is appreciated. Any other hints to speed up brew day would be great also.

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I was obsessed with removing trub from the wort prior to racking to the fermenter.
Like you, I constantly found better ways to improve the brew day. The one pain was the trub.
I even custom designed and built my BK with a tangential return port/nozzle to aid with the whirlpool.
As a side note, I went to pressurized fermentation in 1/4 bbl sankes to speed things along.
One day In said screw it, racked trub and all (after all, I had plenty of room in a 7.75 gallon fermenter) to the fermenter.
Now I just crash the fermenter trub and all at the end of fermentation, then pressure transfer to the serving keg.
Brewing is so much more pleasant now.

can you use a hop bag or hop spider thingy? or throw the hops in those stainless steel tea balls if you wanna get really fancy.

In my experience, using a pump (like the one in your picture) to whirlpool definitely helps with keeping kettle debris out of the transfer. When I used to do it, I always got the infamous 'cone' of stuff in the middle of my kettle. I've read about some folks have trouble getting the 'cone', but with a nice hard whirlpool for a couple of minutes I never had any trouble. I have a dip tube along the wall of the kettle, and most of the cone stayed put during transfer and thus out of the fermenter.

When I did this, I used a DIY whirlpool arm similar to this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=466274

These are convenient as they aren't built into the kettle and can be added at anytime. I used a clamp to hold mine in place while whirlpooling. Also I should note that, even when I was using a pump, I used gravity to transfer from kettle to fermenter.

Hopefully this is helpful. Cheers and enjoy the brew.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vXJz1SOThZMFpzZmZVekYxbk0

I'm going with an 8" propeller driven by a Torrington bearing that will allow it to coast to a stop with the swirling wort. It's geared for a max rpm of 130, which I think will be way more than enough to formal whirlpool, and I can slow it all the way down to 3 rpm if I want to , so I'm pretty sure i'll find the sweet spot.
I have all the parts except for the pillow blocks, and Fab starts soon.

Disclaimer.
I have no clue what I'm doing and expect to enjoy fantastic failures, and this may be one of them.

SDBob said:

Disclaimer.
I have no clue what I'm doing and expect to enjoy fantastic failures, and this may be one of them.

Click to expand...

Home brewing in a nutshell.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4vXJz1SOThZeW1McG01S3pEN1k

$109 from eBay

Will it work? I don't know.
Is it necessary? No.
Is it cool? Hell yes, if it works.

The key is going to be if my torrington bearing idea works. If it can free wheel easily enough to not disturb the whirlpool I'm golden. I can adjust it up and down the shaft and have infinite RPM control from 2 to 130 RPM and can change that with a gear change if necessary.