Hop Rocket and Rice Hulls Rather than Vorlauf

[aaronmq]

So I have a question that I haven't really found an answer to.

Here is my goal: Rack a full 5 gallons of 100% clear beer into the keg.

My problem: I have limited fermenter space; I brew in 6 gallon torpedo kegs with a floating dip tube. If I get too much kettle trub in my fermenter, it makes it into the keg before its full. Sure it will settle in the keg, but I want to avoid this as I often move kegs around and then they get cloudy again. To make this happen, I need to severely limit the amount of trub that goes into fermenter.

I just started using a claw hammer system and squeeze my grains so this is leading me down a road of having a ton of break material in my boil. Even after WP, I still have a volume problem. I know some of this will seem a bit counterintuitive to a dedicated BIAB system, but what do you think the efficacy is of me using my hop rocket with rice hulls to circulate the wort before heating or as I am heating to boil temp as a substitute to vorlaufing?

Also, can a hop rocket with rice hulls on the way to the chill plate and primary drastically minimize trub in fermenter or am i still pretty much at the mercy of what volume I have after WP? I use a hop spider already, so I don't have to filter much of the hop matter.

I know the simple answer is to increase volume so I can get ~5.5 gallons of clear wort in primary after WP, which I will probably do in the future. However, I already have the equipment and ingredients for several batches (malts already mixed together) so I'm ok with overcomplicating the process while I exhaust what I have. I got rid of my mash tun when I bought the claw hammer, so using the old school method isn't an option. The wife would probably kill me if I build a new mash ton after I spent $1000 on a brew system that I lobbied would save space lol.


Thoughts or any additional ideas?

 

[Jag75]

Well you know the simplist way as you've stated. Going from 5 gallons to 5.5 gallon batches doesn't take much to bump up.

We use an inline filter before the plate chiller. It helps with keeping hop particals and sludge out of the picture. Whirfloc helps as well , but I still don't transfer all the wort . I count that last bit as a loss .

 

[day_trippr]

I predict an epic failure trying to filter a full batch through a hop rocket filled with anything that actually grabs stuff other than clear wort. The area just inside the inlet will get packed full of spent hops and random break material and the media beyond that first "surface" may not see much other than wort so it's contribution to filtering will likely be nil.

Have a Plan B at the ready

Cheers!

 

[aaronmq]

Quick update: everything worked and worked well. I hit my OG and got 5.75G of crystal clear wort into the fermenter. However, draining the hop rocket after the kettle was dry was such a pain in the ass. Until I exhaust my current supplies, I will now happily put 4.5 gallons in my kegs to avoid keg trub. Sacrificing 4 pints of beer is well worth the hassle.

If there are any other holdouts on the matter of getting nothing but clear wort into the fermenter, I have yet again confirmed: Over build your recipes, WP, and drain the wort above the kettle trub.