Ball valve on kettle, flow issues (bazooka)?

[mbierz]

I hope this is in the right forum, feel free to move if I've made a mistake.​

I have a 40qt kettle that I brew in and have a 1/2" ball valve on my kettle with a 3/8" barbed fitting. When I heat water and open the valve the flow is great. However, when I try to use this valve to release wort into my counterflow chiller the wort does not come out quickly, and really no further than 1" down the tubing. I do not have a bazooka screen and was thinking of buying one. Do any of you have experience fixing a flow issue like this? I often brew with lots of hops, so straining is probably something key that I've missed. Would a false bottom me significantly better than a bazooka screen? I feel like it's also twice the price.

Thanks for any and all advice.

Matt

 

[DakotaPrerunner]

Do you use whole leaf hops or pellet hops? Both can clog a CFC in a heart beat. My first time using a CFC was a mess. The CFC ended up being blocked by the hops and I had to siphon the beer out of the kettle into the fermenter. Now my brew kettle has a dip tube with a stainless steel pot scrubber on the end of it. Never had a problem with flow since then.

 

[BendBrewer]

I ditched the bazooka screen and went to a false bottom. I am very happy with that change. The bazooka clogged with even a small amount of pellets and it left a lot of wort behind unless you tilted and then you get a ton of trub.

 

[bruin_ale]

A bazooka tube is probably fine - false bottoms are nice but I think it's overkill for a boil kettle.. I've had good luck with a 1/2" compression fitting to 1/2" copper with a stainless scrubby on the end. (right now I have a stainless lint trap mesh on there).

Edit:
Okay, just saw bend's post above mine. I only use leaf hops, so never had much issue. I've also never used a false bottom in my BK - so I'd take his advice.

 

[mbierz]

Thanks, I appreciate all the input. I think I'll start with a dip tube and stainless scrubber, only because it's a much cheaper option. If this doesn't work I'll order a false bottom

If anyone's interested, you can see pictures of my setup and brew days http://beerandmustaches.blogspot.com/ there.

 

[jmmarvel]

I had a similar problem. Even 2 oz of hops clog my bazooka tube. I have tried using a very fine mesh bag in my boil and just throwing the hops in there. The oils can still get through, but the actually leaves and pieces of pellets stay in the mesh bag. I've had decent results with this.

 

[mbierz]

I had a similar problem. Even 2 oz of hops clog my bazooka tube. I have tried using a very fine mesh bag in my boil and just throwing the hops in there. The oils can still get through, but the actually leaves and pieces of pellets stay in the mesh bag. I've had decent results with this.

Is this with pellet or cone hops?

 

[Ender]

I use pellets and a shirron plate chiller. Someone around here posted a build they did with a paint strainer bag. This is what I use, no clogging porblems at all. The 5 gallon strainer bag fits on a plastic pipe fitting and use a big worm clam to strap it down.

 

[kanzimonson]

I tried the stainless steel scrubby method and it was worse than without it - the scrubby compacted so tightly with all the trub and hop pellet mess that I got zero flow. I don't know how people make these work.

I hate to say it but it sounds like you need a pump.

 

[mbierz]

I've never considered a pump, but I'm not opposed to it. Do you know of a diagram on pump placement/type of pump?

 

[kanzimonson]

Pretty much everybody gets the March 809 pump. I recommend replacing your barb fittings with quick disconnects so you can easily attach the pump when it's needed. In all, you're looking at about $200

 

[BendBrewer]

You are still going to have to screen out hop material before the CFC. Pump or not.

 

[mbierz]

I found this, and really think it will help if I put all of my hop additions into a bag like this:

(Would it be an issue to squeeze out the bag of hops at the end of the boil to pull out all liquid, or would this have a negative impact)?

I'm going to put one of these together before my next brewday and see how it works before going a more expensive route.

 

[jbrookeiv]

I found this, and really think it will help if I put all of my hop additions into a bag like this:

(Would it be an issue to squeeze out the bag of hops at the end of the boil to pull out all liquid, or would this have a negative impact)?

I'm going to put one of these together before my next brewday and see how it works before going a more expensive route.

This is exactly what I building, right before I install my ball valve. Nice blog, by the way.

 

[jmmarvel]

This is pretty much what I do. No where near this nice though.

 

[mbierz]

This is pretty much what I do. No where near this nice though.

Do you squeeze the bag at the end to get all of your wort out of the saturated hops?

 

[Northcalais40]

I have a horizontal copper tube at the very bottom center of my keggle, 4" long with hacksaw kerfs every 1/2". As long as I use only whole leaf hops, I get easy flow with good filtering. The first and last time I used pellets, it clogged right up and was a total sisterf*ckaria.

 

[jmmarvel]

Do you squeeze the bag at the end to get all of your wort out of the saturated hops?

Well I just started doing this 2 brews ago, but I just lifted the bag out of the boil and let a bunch drip back in. I know you do not want to squeeze grains in a bag back into your boil, but as far as I know, there are no side effects to squeezing a bag of wet hops back into your boil. Anyone else have definitive info on this?

 

[jbrookeiv]

Well I just started doing this 2 brews ago, but I just lifted the bag out of the boil and let a bunch drip back in. I know you do not want to squeeze grains in a bag back into your boil, but as far as I know, there are no side effects to squeezing a bag of wet hops back into your boil. Anyone else have definitive info on this?

Nope, I squeezed mine, but my last brew was my first time using a bag. One problem is they are hot as a mother****er, but I used a silicone oven mitt and it worked fine.

 

[UGAmike888]

Can someone comment on what material that bag is made out of?

As always, thanks for the ideas.

 

[zeekage]

Pretty sure those are just the 5 gallon nylon paint strainer bags you get get from Home Depot/Lowes for like $3 for 2 of them.

 

[bkl63]

+1 Love my fine Hops bag.

I had a similar problem. Even 2 oz of hops clog my bazooka tube. I have tried using a very fine mesh bag in my boil and just throwing the hops in there. The oils can still get through, but the actually leaves and pieces of pellets stay in the mesh bag. I've had decent results with this.

 

[MarkD]

Hop bag - suspend it over the kettle while the immersion chiller is doing its thing, then squeeze. There's only a pint or so of wort in there so it's cool enough to touch in five minutes. By then my hands have been soaked in Star San from spraying the yeast smack pack, fermenter, etc. so sanitation is not an issue.

 

[BrewerDon]

I don't have a valve on my kettle but I use a 3/8 inch copper racking cane into a counter flow chiller and I never have this problem.

My guess is that you are not whirl-pooling before opening your valve.

After turning off the heat, just gently stir in a circular motion and get your whirl pool going good. Then wait 15 minutes before opening the valve. Almost all of your trub and hops will come to rest in the center, at the bottom of the kettle where it will form a cone.

Watch the inside of the kettle after most of the wort has drained. When the stuff in the center starts to get sucked in the valve it's time to shut it off.

 

[soundsandsuds]

For a brew last night I borrowed a friend's Shirron in the hopes that it would shorten my brew day. I've got a kettlevalve with the kettlescreen, and got pretty much zero flow into the fermenter. There was a lot of swearing, opening and closing the valve and then a bunch of beer loss to the ground when I pulled the hose to the plate chiller with the valve open.
Then there was more swearing while I attached the hoses back on my immersion chiller which I had been using to clean the plate chiller and then quickly wiped it down with Starsan. (and at some point the hose clamps had gotten squished.)
Very frustrating day and I'd like to know how to fix it, since I'd like to shorten my brewdays since I usually brew on weekday nights after work. I was using whole hops and scraping the kettlescreen with my spoon to try to unplug it didn't seem to make a difference.

 

[phertwo]

I use to...
Throw hop pellets directly in my boil.
Connect my counterflow chiller to the kettle valve with a bazooka screen.

This equaled swearing, burnt flesh, frustration, 30 minutes of trickle draining, constantly scraping the bazooka screen and holding the brew pot above my head to increase gravity flow.

Now I...
Always use a long nylon fine mesh hop bag.
Use a March pump connected to my counterflow chiller to the kettle valve with a bazooka screen.

This equals cool wort in < 5 minutes, relaxation and smiles.

 

[bruin_ale]

soundsandsunds, how many oz of hops did you have in that batch? I have a bazooka screen and a plate chiller and I usually just throw the hops in. I've had no issues with most batches, but I had to scrape the screen with a spoon one time when I had 5 or 6 oz of hops on a DIPA batch. I still got all but a half gallon of wort out though. The nylon bag would work, I have the hop spider setup - but with a 14 gallon kettle it doesn't work so well for 5 gallon batches - barely dips into the boiling wort.

 

[soundsandsuds]

Just 2oz of hops. Pretty significant trub, though.
I actually pulled out one of my muslin hop bags, which I hadn't used since installing the kettlevalve, at the beginning of the brew day. I was going to use it for ease of clean-up and then totally forgot about it.
I think it's probably time to make a dip tube, since either way there's more wort loss in the pot than I'd like. I'll see if that works better than the kettlescreen. This time I'll have my immersion chiller set up and ready to go if needed, though. Maybe I'll even run the cold water in circuit through the IC into the plate chiller.

 

[bruin_ale]

Just 2oz of hops. Pretty significant trub, though.

yeah, I forgot my whirlfloc one time and wow that one was super easy to get into the carboy. The break really gums the whole thing up. I think using nylon hops bags or the hop spider type deal would solve your problem, but not quite as cool as just tossing the hops in and watching them roll with the boil.

 

[soundsandsuds]

not quite as cool as just tossing the hops in and watching them roll with the boil.

I know. It's a thing of beauty (both of the visual and the olfactory varieties.)

 

[Polboy]

I had experimented with bazooka and hop spider but it didnt work very well. Now im using copper dip tube with large (4x5 i think) tea/herb ball attached at the end and its great, last time i had 10gal wort with 13oz of hops (5 leaf 8 pellet) and had no problems what so ever (using CFC and hops in the boil)