Hop Stopper

I want to thank Dennis Collins for working with me and making recommendations on how to make the Hop Stopper work properly. I also want to thank Duke for recommending it.
As I wrote in a previous thread the screen clogged and I had to bail out the keggle.
After I switched from a immersion wort cooler to a counterflow cooler it worked great. Siphoned clear wort in the corboy only left a few cups in the keggle.

It will be a great asset.

Does the hop stopper not work properly if an immersion type chiller is used? I would like to get a stopper, but have no intentions of moving to a counterflow chiller.

What I am finding is that break material is a bigger concern than hops. This will be true for ANY filter type device. The finer the screen, the more that break will be a problem. Since immersion chillers form all the cold break inside the kettle, this will be a bigger issue than with a counter-flow or plate chiller.

There are really only two ways to deal with this - leave more wort behind, or pass the cold break through. Leaving wort behind is not really an option, that's what we are trying to avoid. That leaves passing the cold break through as the most viable option.

Currently, I'm doing some R&D on varying screen mesh sizes trying to address this issue. David (davidkrau) was more than willing to help out with this in addition to my own experiements. In the meantime, the money back guarantee on the Hop Stopper stands regardless of your chilling method. If there is an unhappy Hop Stopper owner out there, it's only because they aren't talking to me.

That's the state of things in a nutshell. I welcome all questions and comments.

Prosit!

not trying to steal your biz thunder Dennis - an honest question - why wouldn't you put the hops in a hop bag and be done?

I've found no distinguishible taste difference between adding the hops directly to the boil and adding the hops into a hop bag. there may be some alpha acid and oil xfer that my taste buds cannot distinguish - and i haven't done molecular investigation - but to me if you're using a course grid bag and your boil is 212° +, then i feel certain you're getting the desired results.

as we know, taste is realitive, but when it comes to beer - taste is everything.

The truth is, I've never done any experimentation with bags and the level of hop bitterness, flavor, and aroma. However, it is safe to say that alpha acid utilization is higher when the hops are allowed to churn around with the boil instead of confined to a bag. It also wouldn't be a stretch to extrapolate that to flavor and aroma as well. Whether or not this is appreciable is a matter of experimentation and is mostly likely beer style dependant. I think the size of the bag and how tightly the hops were packed in would be relevant as well.

The goal for the Hop Stopper was to remove all of this from the equation; make hop form (pellets or whole) irrelevant, make hop bags irrelevant, make hop amounts irrelevant, and have one device that is installed in the kettle that will remove any hop form in any amount while getting the most from what the hops have to offer and that is easy to clean and maintain.

Good question.

I think the size of the bag and how tightly the hops were packed in would be relevant as well.

Click to expand...

I'm talking about a very large course grid bag banded to a 8" PVC coupling which sits on top your kettle. you add hops as scheduled, the bag churns with the boil. (bottom right of pic - in this pic we did two brews and it's setting up to the side on the kettle waiting for sparge to finish)



i will agree that in theory what you say about aa utilization seems correct. and the hotstopper would eliminate all doubt.

maybe my taste buds are unrefined philistines

good product though - i find the niche toys that homebrewers come up with fascinating.

Brewhead, I have see others do the same and it does seem like a good idea. Are you only using leaf hops in that thing? Seem like pellets would go through a corse bag. Also, if you do 5 gallon batches will the bag go low enough to reach the wort?

MrSaLTy said:

Brewhead, I have see others do the same and it does seem like a good idea. Are you only using leaf hops in that thing? Seem like pellets would go through a corse bag. Also, if you do 5 gallon batches will the bag go low enough to reach the wort?

Click to expand...

in the pic we were doing a poor richard's ale and a modified club ipa. both were 15 gallon batches. i can tell you that the pellet hops don't come throught the mesh like you'd think they would.

the bag is about 2 foot in length - it is held on with a pipe clamp - you could easily shorten or lengthen as needed.

i think the hop stopper is a great idea - and i think it makes sense, and it leaves no doubt that you're getting the full monty from your hops.

When i bought the Hop Stopper I didn't consider the price to be a budget buster. Even without the Hop Stopper I find the counterflow cooler helpful. It saves time, you siphon boiling wort directly in a corboy and it goes into the corboy at room temperture. Previously I was using a nylon hop bag and an immersion cooler. When I siphoned the cooled wort through a funnel with a screen, the screen constantly clogged up with green crud. I assumed this was hops that had filtered through the hop bag. It could very well have been cold break and hops.

Compared to other hobbies, home brewing is not in my opinion a very expensive one compared to golf, photography or raising raising horses unless of course you get into building a special brew house with large SS conicals and fancy filters .

To me the cost of the Hop Stopper and the $63.00 I paid for the Counterflow were justified.

I am ready to beat Dennis to a bloody pulp myself, but I finished cutting the tubing and mounting the sight glass (cutting the tubing without a pipe cutter sucked).. Anyway, The "bends" were perfect for a Sabco keggle Dennis, the tubing was about an inch too long on the long side of the "L".. Being tool deficient I cut them with a hacksaw... The Keggles are set to go for my first AG batch using Dennis's stuff.. will post pictures and evaluation of my hopstopper on saturday.. (I have a friend and longtime Homebrewer coming over to coach me thru the first AG batch) I figure by the time we are done I'll be too drunk to post friday..

Edit: I burned my finger drilling the stabilizer hole

And yea, our 4 star gave us a 4 day weekend for memorial day.. Don't forget to drink a homebrew Monday in Honor of our fallen brothers, They gave it all for your right to Brew.