Whirlpooling kettle

I attempted to whirlpool my kettle this weekend to keep the hops/break in the center. It didn't work too well, once we got to the bottom everything was sort of spread out and we lost a lot of wort as a result. I used pellet hops. Does anyone have ideas why this didn't work? Do I need whole hops?

my guess is that you probably need a conical vessel to truly whirlpool inorder to keep out the trub.

glibbidy said:

my guess is that you probably need a conical vessel to truly whirlpool inorder to keep out the trub.

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While we are talking about this, is there any reasons to not put the trub and break material in the fermentor? It seems to settle right away. I would guess I lost atleast 3 quarts in the kettle.

Good info on whirlpooling here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=7682

Todd said:

I attempted to whirlpool my kettle this weekend to keep the hops/break in the center. It didn't work too well, once we got to the bottom everything was sort of spread out and we lost a lot of wort as a result. I used pellet hops. Does anyone have ideas why this didn't work? Do I need whole hops?

Click to expand...

I had the same problem. While I do not mind break material in the primary I did not want all of it and try to maximize getting the most wort from the kettle. On the last 2 batches I have siphoned all but the last gallon or so and the pour the remaining wort in a 2.5 gallon sanitized bucket lined with a nylon paint strainer bag. When I remove the bag and let the wort drain out I capture a lot more hop debris than with my prior attempt at whirlpooling. I used 6.5 oz. of hops yesterday and after using this technique I had a softball sized bag full of hops and trub.