Keggle BK + false bottom?

Do you guys use a false bottom in your keggles to strain out trub, or do you just suck everything into your fermenter and not worry about it?

For those of you that use them, do you still use hop bags, or do you just toss your hops in the brew and don't worry about it?

I'm doing my fist 10G batch today, and I'm leaving the scrubbie out as I'm concerned it might clog around the bottom, preventing all the wort from being siphoned out..

So I'm wondering how everyone approaches this issue.. Considering a jaybird hinged FB for this purpose, but wanted to get opinions first...

For lightly hopped beers I just whirlpool and it works great. For heavily hopped beers I use a hop spider and then whirlpool. It's been cheap, easy, and effective for me, but as always, YMMV.

Edit to add: the trub doesn't really hurt anything, I only try to remove it because it takes up precious space, and I find that it makes clearing the beer a little easier when I remove as much of the break material as possible.

I've brewed 4 times now on my new fully electric brew system and i pump the wort out from a side pickup tube with a copper scrubbie wedged between the tube and the wall of the keg. This seems to be pretty efficient in straining out the trub. I initially thought it wasn't because i was seeing alot of material in my carboy but I now believe it is cold break. With my new system i'm using a therminator to chill my wort so I don't believe i was ever getting a decent cold break or I just never noticed it when i chilled directly in the BK.

I use a SS scrubbie around my diptube and toss the hops right in. Pellet and hole leaf. It's never worked less than amazing. I would just toss them after each brew instead of trying to clean them out. That said, I am finding it very difficult to find the large SS scrubbies and I am out. I'm planning on getting a FB from Jaybird.

Not sure what you mean by "large" but i find copper and SS scrubbies (about side a closed fist) from my super walmart in the cleaning isle.

IrregularPulse said:

I use a SS scrubbie around my diptube and toss the hops right in. Pellet and hole leaf. It's never worked less than amazing. I would just toss them after each brew instead of trying to clean them out. That said, I am finding it very difficult to find the large SS scrubbies and I am out. I'm planning on getting a FB from Jaybird.

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I did that on the first batch I made with my new keggle (except that I used a hop bag for the bittering hops, but not the others).. It was a 5G batch, and the problem I had, was that the hops and what not clogged around the bottom of the scrubbie where it sits on the bottom of the keg.. As a result, it broke the siphon action when the wort got almost near the bottom, leaving about a half gallon of wasted wort in there.. I want to get it all out.. because that's like 4 or 5 beers I didn't get to drink!

So that's why I'm asking.. I have three areas that still need to be addressed on the brew/ferment end of things, this being one of them.. and I can't afford them all at once.. So I'm gathering info to help me 'prioritize' things..

I felt that way at first to, now I just factor in a gallon of lost dead space when putting together my recipe so I can achieve a 5 gallon collection.

I make 12 gallon batches. I just switched to a hop bag/spider on my keggle. I can tell you that more than 3-5 oz of hops in the bottom of a BK is a HUGE mess. I normally use a spatter screen and have my dip tube right angled so that the IC does not hit it, I stir and then the break/hops/sludge is left in the middle. This is ok but seems a little wasteful. (I HATE loosing potential beer!)

I have been also kicking the idea around of using the cut top of my sanke as a FB as seen here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cut-keg-top-false-bottom-192413/index3.html

I was thinking of doing something with a tri-clover fitting, since I would be leery about using a bung in the boil...The MLT just does not get that hot...and I would think the smallest holes/drill bits would work the best. My wrist hurts from thinking about it...lol. Possibly in conjunction with a SS scrubby over the end of dip tube.

IMO looking down at a dry/semi-dry mess is better than looking in on wasted beer. I am also interested in hearing others thoughts on this subject. I would think the biggest issue would be what happens if it gets stuck? other than a lot of cursing???

I have never tried using a FB in boil kettle but have heard from others that it is a nightmare and clogs up to easily since that is the main settle point for trub. I believe Bobby M once posted something that looked like a 3 dimension triangle almost like a teepee tent made from ss mesh screen, i've been very interested in trying that since the top of the tent would hopefully rise out of the trub bed.

I use a false bottom in my BK and I toss the hops in loose whether pellets, whole or both and it works just fine. Some minor amounts of very fine debris make it through the false bottom, but it doesn't seem to do any harm. The vast majority of the hop debris and break material is retained on the FB.





I tried the hop spider/paint strainer thingy and was much less than thrilled with it. Hop bags were better, but I like the free swimming hops the best of all. I just brewed a 12 gallon batch of IPA with a total of 13 oz of hops. I used 100% pellets and had no problems. IIRC, the pics shown are with about 6 oz of pellet hops.

marnel said:

I have never tried using a FB in boil kettle but have heard from others that it is a nightmare and clogs up to easily since that is the main settle point for trub. I believe Bobby M once posted something that looked like a 3 dimension triangle almost like a teepee tent made from ss mesh screen, i've been very interested in trying that since the top of the tent would hopefully rise out of the trub bed.

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Isn't whirlpooling supposed to take care of the clogging? And if it does get clogged, couldn't you just scrape the bottom with a spoon (while you're whirlpooling even?

What I like about the idea of a FB, is that underneath it is 'only wort'.. and so this should allow your dip tube to pick up every last drop...

In theory anyways...

IrregularPulse said:

I use a SS scrubbie around my diptube and toss the hops right in. Pellet and hole leaf. It's never worked less than amazing. I would just toss them after each brew instead of trying to clean them out. That said, I am finding it very difficult to find the large SS scrubbies and I am out. I'm planning on getting a FB from Jaybird.

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I found some really large SS scrubbies at a Kitchen supply store. I had to buy a bag of 24 so they last a long time.

I have a hardtime whirlpooling as my electric element cuts right through the center of the keg disturbing the dynamics of the actual whirl, so i couldn't answer that. It looks like Catt22 does it with no problems, makes me tempted to try but i think my element would make it hard to slide the FB in and out (possibly one of the first drawbacks i've encountered in Electric brewing).

http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=NYP1S

I just use one of these filter bags in a 200 micron size and I'm thinking of trying out the 400 micron size to see how it does. I put a small piece of stainless tubing I have to make sure it stays weighted down and it works great with no noticeable loss of IBU's. The bags last a long time, I used my first one for over a year before deciding to replace it.