Anyone use a stainless steel tea ball for hops?

rather than those little cloth hop bags?

I was just wondering if they would negatively affect utilization or taste if 1/2 of them don't come out of the bag like in paramus.

I don't but quite a few others here do.

I used one once in the boil, and I didn't like how the middle of the hops never got wet. When I put it in (1oz) the hops expanded and took up the entire ball, but when I opened it later, the middle was relatively dry. So I don't use it for that purpose anymore.

However I found it's awesome for dryhopping in the keg

I've played around with a couple. I think I got a couple 3" balls. It's amazing how much even pellet hops expand to fill the entire area of the tea ball even if it's under half full when you put it in. I haven't given up on the concept yet, but may try moving to a bigger one. I've also been thinking of using them for a second dry hop in the keg.

I have used the stainless tea balls when I brew Mr. Beer (2 gallon) sized batches but I think they are too small for 5 gallon batches unless you hapen to pick up half a dozen. I use the larger size and only put 1/2oz of pellets inside to allow room for the wort to flow around. They are easy to clean and keep 90% of the hops out of your wort.

Basically I tried them and stopped using them. Pellet hops settle out with the trub so I just let them swim free.

Before I built my hop screen for my kettle I used these. No more than .5 ounces per 3" ball. I had 4 of them, but 2 ounces is less than most of the recipes I made.

I made one of these: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/diy-hop-filter-video-102697/

I have only used it on one batch so far, but with about 7oz of hops in the boil it worked perfectly.

Also: On the tea balls that I bought, the balls themselves were stainless, but it turns out the the hardware holding them together was not. The eventually degraded and fell apart.

Their fine for dry hopping, but I would NEVER use them in a boil.

I tried it once and it was a dismal failure. Paint strainer bags are where it's at.