Clogged strainer!

I have been brewing for over a year and a half now but still consider myself a beginner. A lot of my early brews I used hop pellets and threw them into muslin bags and pulled them at the end of the boil. Recently I started using whole hops and have been straining my beer when i pour into my fermenter. Last evening I brewed a Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Stout using Natural creamy peanut butter that I skimmed the oil off of over the past few days. When i went to strain the beer there was so much sediment that my strainer became clogged and I ended up with wort all over myself and my kitchen.

My question is when brewing these "thick" heavy sediment beers is it better to syphon the wort from the pot to the fermenter? Anyone have luck doing this? Is there any concern the syphon will become clogged?

Most gunk will either float or sink. If you let the beer sit covered for a period before moving to your fermentor, you can siphon from the middle of the pot and get mostly liquid. If you are pouring, then the strainer is doing its job and you've just got to pour more slowly.

Use an immersion chiller or an ice bath to cool the wort in the kettle. Then siphon the wort off the trash. This may be more applicable if using hop pellets.

I used a double strainer for the first time with my last batch and found I had to unclog it about 3 times (pellet hops). I just made sure I poured slowly so we didn't lose anything

MalFet said:

Most gunk will either float or sink. If you let the beer sit covered for a period before moving to your fermentor, you can siphon from the middle of the pot and get mostly liquid. If you are pouring, then the strainer is doing its job and you've just got to pour more slowly.

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+1 I used to strain my wort and always had touble with it clogging the strainer. Now I just drink more and care less. I don't strain at all. I do, however, try to whirlpool and then allow the trub/break to settle to the middle. I drain off the side of my keggle, so the process works reasonably well for me.

Thanks for the tips... today I had an idea, what if I use a deep fryer hand strainer. The thing you use to pull homemade french fries out of hot oil. Not sure of the correct name. If I use that device sanitized of course and take out the whole hops right at flame out before I chill my wort. Has anyone ever tried that? Hopefully that was not too confusing.

had the same problem with a metal strainer - i now use a 5gal paint strainer bag inside the bucket when i pour from the kettle - much easier to deal with although you do have to squeeze the bag/hops good to get all the wort out

I'd imagine any straining device would get clogged so you really have two options 1) go slower and periodically clean the strainer 2) Throw it all in the fermenter and dont worry about it.

All u gotta do it tap the strainer or aggitate with a kitchen spoon or ladle. I am in culinary i guess these tricks arent common knowledge.

msh227 said:

Thanks for the tips... today I had an idea, what if I use a deep fryer hand strainer. The thing you use to pull homemade french fries out of hot oil. Not sure of the correct name. If I use that device sanitized of course and take out the whole hops right at flame out before I chill my wort. Has anyone ever tried that? Hopefully that was not too confusing.

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yep ive done that. i used to work at a fastfood resturaunt that used this method to clean out the fryers. so thats where i got the idea. i went and got a brand new wire mesh strainer, sanatized it, and went for the gold. ive used it with pellet and whole hops. ive also used it to remove like 6 lbs of grain from my mini mash when my grain bag broke open. works like a champ. works so well that i siphon from my kettle to my fermenter (after cooling) and go thru a sanitized re useable stainles steel coffee filter and only need to clean it out like three times for the full five gallons.

Awesome, sounds good thanks for the tips. I'll have to give that a try with my next brew.

Yeah just scrape or aggitate with a spoon or ladle another way is tapping the strainer with a big spoon.
i use these techniques when straining anything with sediment of any kind.