dbrewski
Well-Known Member
Ok, I have searched and read on this topic over and over. My brain kind of hurts. Here's my deal. I have used the following: hop bags dropped into the boil, hop spiders with paint bags, bazooka filters, a large homemade hop thingy from SS screen, and no screen. I use whole hops and pellet hops, sometimes both in the same batch. I want a solution that filters out whole and pellet hops at the same time. I use a CFC/pump setup or just an IC depending upon my laziness at the time (no brewstand setup).
I don't like hop bags or spiders because I do not get good utilization, especially with later hops. My hop bag gets clogged up with boil junk probably halfway thru the boil even with whole hops. I can pull the bag up, and it retains wort like a water balloon, so the hops are not getting good flow. So my goal is hops in the full boil, no bag. I moved to a bazooka screen. It clogged with pellet hops, any kind of screen seems to clog with pellets. With whole hops, a screen type filter works fine.
Am I overthinking this? I have not found a solution that works good with a mix of whole and pellet hops. Maybe it's my process not the screen. I have looked at the Hopblocker, I don't have a Blichmann kettle, I've seen the hopstopper, it seems just like my homemade screen solution (maybe it isn't). I thought my homemade job would do the trick, but as I pulled off wort via pump it clogged right away (mix of whole and pellet). Maybe just a gravity drain would have worked better? Here is a pic of it.
Thanks for any tips.
I don't like hop bags or spiders because I do not get good utilization, especially with later hops. My hop bag gets clogged up with boil junk probably halfway thru the boil even with whole hops. I can pull the bag up, and it retains wort like a water balloon, so the hops are not getting good flow. So my goal is hops in the full boil, no bag. I moved to a bazooka screen. It clogged with pellet hops, any kind of screen seems to clog with pellets. With whole hops, a screen type filter works fine.
Am I overthinking this? I have not found a solution that works good with a mix of whole and pellet hops. Maybe it's my process not the screen. I have looked at the Hopblocker, I don't have a Blichmann kettle, I've seen the hopstopper, it seems just like my homemade screen solution (maybe it isn't). I thought my homemade job would do the trick, but as I pulled off wort via pump it clogged right away (mix of whole and pellet). Maybe just a gravity drain would have worked better? Here is a pic of it.
Thanks for any tips.