S/S Braid in Boil Kettle to stop hops? Cooling Keggle with Ice?

We're more than half way to getting all the equipment together for AG, but we're going to brew a 5 gal extract batch in the keggle. This will be our first full boil, since our previous boil kettle was a 5 gal pot which forced us to do 3.75 concentrated boils.

Two questions:

1) I have a S/S braid intended for an MLT. Can I use that in the boil kettle to strain out pellet hops without too much clogging?

2) Also, it's possible we won't have our IC in time. We do have Walmart keg tubs. Is it possible to cool a full boil 5 gal batch in a keggle using an ice bath in a keg tub? I'm prepared to buy several bags of ice if need be.

Thanks!

1 I don't see why not.

2 Absolutely, but convection will be key....in other words: keeping water circulating in the tub.



I have used a kiddie pool with good success. The key is to let water overflow out of the tub by having a running hose pointed at the pot. Have the hose as high up on your pot as you can without getting water in the pot. I bungied my lid on real good and put a towel over it.

Note that there will be a lot of overflow water so don't do this uphill from anything you don't want to get wet.

Good to hear about the ice bath! I'll have to make sure the keggle + valve fits in the keg tub.

Anyone actually use S/S braid to strain pellet hops?

Moonpile said:

Anyone actually use S/S braid to strain pellet hops?

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I'd use a hop bag for pellets... they'll likely cause some clogging issues for you with just the braid.

Austin

Yeah, I was talking with one of the guys from our group and it occured to us that we could just not filter the output from the keggle in any way and run the hose into on of our large grain bags on it's way into the bucket.

I sanitize a rubber band in some no-rinse and secure the hop bag to the end leaving as much of the bag freed up as possible.

I wouldn't worry about filtering too much into the primary. Some Hop debris has been proven to actually help clearing by giving the goop something to congeal on. I have left tons and tons of hops in until bottling before with no problems....not to mention dry hopping! That actually puts Hops into the secondary. Hop residue in the fermenter isn't that big of a deal.

cheezydemon said:

I wouldn't worry about filtering too much into the primary.... Hop residue in the fermenter isn't that big of a deal.

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True, I didn't bother straining pellot hops out when I used an IC. I'm thinking along the lines of my current set up that includes a CFC that I do what I can to keep from getting filled with hops debris.