All stainless steel deluxe hop bag/spider...cheap!!!

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Zamial

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Disclaimer: I am not the inventor of the hop bag/spider nor am I claiming to be, these statements are specifically referencing the design and parts used. I do not know if I have seen anyone else do this. I am not sure if I am the 1st person to think this up. Search did NOT bring up ANYTHING like this...So, I am claiming all credit for this design concept. If you feel that the credit is not mine then please let me know. Also, I am not a professional photographer or instructor so please bear with me. Thanks and enjoy the DIY!

Presenting, Zamial's all stainless steel deluxe hop bag/spider!!!!

Prologue:
*I brew in keggles.
For my hop additions I have tried the giant tea ball infusers and straining out loose hops, both of these techniques had issues. Straining was a PITA and the infusers were a PITA to fill and only allowed for 1 ingredient addition per ball, easily.
I am going to be trying some DIY things in the near future with the "spent hops" so I needed to devise a way that would be easy to keep hops separate from other ingredient additions (like orange peels for example) and I wanted to keep it separate from break material, so a false bottom was also out (not to mention pricey unless I make one like I did out of a sanke top for my MLT as seen in this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/cut-keg-top-false-bottom-192413/index2.html but use tri-clover fittings to safely boil.) So, I had decided I would try a hop bag/spider.
I built a PVC coupler based model and was impressed with how well it worked for hops additions but it had gotten a little melty after 1st use. No reason to panic but it pissed me off. I decided I wanted a, as much as possible, stainless steel hop bag/spider. I started looking online and in hardware stores for some sort of substitute for the PVC piece. I found nothing that was affordable.(truth be told I found nothing at all...lol) I was going to cut apart my smallest unused stainless kettle (a 1.5 gallon one) and it hit me when I was looking at galvanized funnels...this would be perfect if it had a wider opening and less of an angle...hey, why not use the cut top of my sanke keg that has been screaming "Do something with me." for months? It would be perfect! Today was the day!


Parts list: (Quantity/item/price)

1- cut sanke top with no sharp edges!!!! - free
1- 2 3/4" stainless steel hose clamp - 1.79
1- 5 gallon paint strainer bag - .50
3- 1/4" x 2" SS eyebolt - 1.99 ea (The hole needs to be large enough to allow a 3/8" ss bolt to pass through)
3- 1/4" SS nuts - .20 ea
3- 1/4" SS lock washer - .17 ea
6- 1/4" SS washers - .17 ea
6- 1 1/2" SS fender washer (The hole needs to be large enough to allow a 3/8" ss bolt to pass through)

The following parts I had, so I am omitting these from the cost as I do not remember what I paid for them but it was not all that much I promise...I am also sure you could use a thinner size than the 3/8" stuff and it would work fine just make sure the pieces will work in the fashion shown...

3- 3/8" ss bolts about 6 inches, you will need to measure as all cut tops are a little different...these can be eye bolts or carriage bolts.
6- 3/8" ss washers
6- 3/8" ss lock nuts

I am going to guess that all the parts were sub $20.00 grand total.

How I made it:

STEP 1: Drill a 1/4" hole about an inch from the edge so that there are 3 holes all about 120 degrees apart(as in 1/3 the way around). I used the washer that was going there and moved it back a little to measure the distance from the edge. My drill bit walked a little but I did not care that much. Do not forget to deburr the holes!

STEP 2: Attach the 3 1/4"x2" eye bolt. I screwed the nut that came with the eye bolt a few threads from bottoming out all the way towards the "eye" end, added a 1/4" washer, put bolt through hole, added 1/4" washer, then 1/4" lock washer and finally the 1/4" nut. Tighten it all up.(repeat STEP 2 for the last 2 holes...)

STEP 3: Attach a 3/8" bolt onto the eye bolt. Start off by screwing a nut onto the bolt, then a 3/8" washer, then a 1 1/2" fender washer, put bolt through the "eye" of the eye bolt, add a1 1/2" fender washer, a 3/8" washer and the last 3/8" nut. Tighten it up. (repeat STEP 3 for the last 2 eye bolts...)

You should now have something that looks like this:

hopspideroverheadconf2.jpg


and

hopspideroverheadveiwconf1.jpg


close ups of the mounts:

closeupmontinghardware.jpg


Then the last thing left to do is attach the bag using the 2 3/4" hose clamp. Here it is all assembled with me holding it above the keggle. It is also a nice view of the mounts:
kegglewithbagattachedconf1.jpg


The bag goes almost all the way to the bottom of the sanke with no problems and I do not fear it slipping off because the sanke collar has a lip on it that will keeps it from sliding down/slipping off.
 
My design will also act as a "ZOMG, X fell into my wort." shield. It will even cover a large portion of the wort protecting it from the Sun. I am even going to claim that it will help the wort to boil faster/require less BTUs as it should help hold some heat in while allowing the DMS to escape. It can also easily be slid slightly off center for use with a heat stick but that may get sketchy with the bag in the wort at the same time...

Now, that I have told you about most of the cool benefits of this design, you may still be wondering, how I am going to keep my ingredients separated from the hops...

Remember, I was talking about using these:
oldfriendsrevisited.jpg
???
Well, they are now perfectly held at a good depth and spaced apart when hung on the carriage bolts inside the keggle. I may lengthen the chains a little, time will tell... The also are nicely hung on the bolts outside the keggle so they can be ready to go when needed for premeasured ingredient additions.
Also, it is possible to NOT use a bag and only use the infuser balls, if one decides to brew an easy 1 hop addition per ball recipe! *this would also allow for a heat stick to be mounted in the center hole. If someone wanted to use a heat stick or even convert to electric without permanently altering the keggle with a hole...Not that I am planning that...yet...

Final Pic:

hopspiderfinal.jpg


I know that my keggles need polished and that is on my to do list, until then my ugly keggles brew just fine...

As of this moment it is all untested and I know the proof is in the use. I will be brewing with the ZASSDHB/S this weekend and will report back with the performance of the unit.
 
Nice Design! My only worry is how much of kettle it covers. You may be dripping most of your boil-off back in to your kettle. Please report back on how it works!
 
I love this idea as I just cut the top off my keg and I was wondering what the hell I was going to do with it. Do you find that it is annoying to have to lift up while using to check your boil?
 
Well, I had my brew day and a few things changed. I swapped out the non-stainless carriage bolts for standard 3/8 x 5" stainless bolts. (Funny how fast PBW finds non stainless parts...) I only used the larger washers as I had less treads but this worked out just fine. The hops went in the hole easy enough. The bag never slipped or had any issues at all.

I had a strange boil, with the hop spider in the configuration it is in now, I had a very active boil. I would say that it was the hardest boil I have had to date. Ever. The visible steam was less when it was "covered by the spider" and I could "burp" the steam by lifting a bolt, which I did. I had very good results using this and I think I would consider the original configuration a "winter setting". I plan on flipping the eye bolts around and that will add another 1" or so to the gap between the spider and the keggle top. I am thinking this is going to be the best for a "non burped/not messed with" set up, like how most hop spiders are.

I did some reading on the wiki about DMS and I am sure this is what most people are concerned with. At this point I can not say I drove off 100% of all DMS but the Wiki info makes me feel MUCH better about it. The Wiki sated that DMS can be driven off by a %8 boil off rate. I can say I have NEVER had this much boil off. I had over a gallon, almost 2 gallons! :p which is WAY over 8%. If this info is wrong I would love to hear otherwise...

FYI I do 90 min boils.

I will post back after the mods and brew day tomorrow... :mug:
 
I did some reading on the wiki about DMS and I am sure this is what most people are concerned with. At this point I can not say I drove off 100% of all DMS but the Wiki info makes me feel MUCH better about it. The Wiki sated that DMS can be driven off by a %8 boil off rate. I can say I have NEVER had this much boil off. I had over a gallon, almost 2 gallons! :p which is WAY over 8%. If this info is wrong I would love to hear otherwise...

FYI I do 90 min boils.

I will post back after the mods and brew day tomorrow... :mug:

My concern is not with your boil off rate, but with how much of the DMS that boiled off may have dripped back in to the kettle. But I have no real world experience with this so my concern may be completely unfounded. Please report back and let us all know how this worked out for you! :mug:
 
I had my brew day and did flip the position of the eyebolts, this seemed to allow a much greater amount of steam to escape, with no interaction from me. Sorry, no pics yet. I am also building a heat stick that I will be able to easily install on an additional cut bottom, in the original configuration, to aid in bringing my HLT to temps faster as well as getting the wort to boil.

I was/am very pleased with the second configuration and will hopefully get some pics when everything is finished.
 
Sorry for the bad lag in updating this thread. I have a few of these that I really need to come back to...I posted this info in a different thread...

I have no idea of the "safe" aspect of this. I melted mine, after 2 uses it was no longer round. I also had a spot of rust on 1 of the bolts. I scrapped the entire mess for this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/all-stainless-steel-deluxe-hop-bag-spider-cheap-238341/

Since then I have brewed 2 batches with the modded keg top. Due to DMS concerns (not that I ever tasted any DMS in my beer). I inverted the eye bolts, raising the cover by a good 4-6 inches. I served 2 1/4 bbls at my wedding party and none of my guests mentioned anything other than "Damn that was good!" to me and 1 was a wheat beer...I will update that thread with this info as well and try to get some pics of the newer configuration tomorrow.

I love this piece of equipment. It has deflected a few things already (A leaf and a bug) and I have had no DMS flavors in either of the 2 brews I used it on. The opening is a little smaller but if you "miss" it is REALLY easy to nudge a pellet into the opening with ones finger or other pokey device...lol.

As for "lifting it to check the boil" I can see really well under it. IMO there is no need to lift it other than to satisfy ones own desires to do so. If you have a cut top that is collecting dust give it a go.

I will do my best to take a pic of the "new configuration" sitting on a keggle and post it back here tomorrow.
 
Well today it was the 1st day there was no rain in almost a week. Anyway this is the configuration that I use it in and it works just fine. There is a large gap and I have had no DMS flavors in my brews.

DSCF2384.jpg


DSCF2386.jpg


If there are any more questions, I will do my best to answer them.

Happy brewing!

:mug:
 
I like the looks of this and if I every find something to use as a cover I will make one of these. currently I use my cut tops as covers by soldering three washers onto the top so i can place them back into the hole they came out of.
 
I have used these nylon mesh bags many times for steeping but I was afraid they would melt at a boil. No issues?

The 5 gallon paint strainer bags? No issues at all. Same as any bag, don't let it touch the bottom of the BK.
 
$15, all stainless. Plus you still get to the liquid and stir, especially if you do any late hop additions and whirlpool.

IMG_0578.jpg


IMG_0579.jpg
 
I got all my components from Home Depot. It's a stainless steel drain attachment plus a few 1/4 inch threaded rods and nuts/washers. The paint strainer is 5 gallons. All it took was a drill and 10 minutes to assemble. I hold the bag on with a large twist tie.

image-1756747802.jpg
 

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