dandw12786
Well-Known Member
I'm getting back into this after a couple of years off, and stumbled on a deal at a yard sale recently. I got a keggle, but I'm kind of wondering how to use this thing. It has the measuring sightglass, thermometer, and ball valve.
My biggest question is about the dip tube. It goes straight into the center, about a quarter inch off the bottom (it may even be from brewhardware.com, the dip tube, thermometer, and sightglass certainly look like his stuff, but I can't be certain). So here I am thinking, if I use this as my boil kettle (which I thought I was going to do), I can't whirlpool, as it'll suck everything up. I question whether or not a DIY hop spider bag holder thing with a paint strainer is going to give me enough slack to keep the hops in the boiling wort (only doing five gallons for now, and I'm not sure if the bags are long enough). I don't think I can just let it ride and hope that the dip tube doesn't get clogged.
So my question is what should I do? I'd like something to filter out the hops, but not sure what I should be using. I used to just cross my fingers and dump my cooled wort through a sanitized strainer into a bucket using just a plain aluminum stock pot that was my kettle, and hope too much didn't end up on the garage floor. I'm using a fermonster instead of a bucket this go round, so dumping just isn't going to work as the opening isn't big enough, and plus that was just way too much work with too big of a risk of all my hard work ending up on the garage floor.
I could bend the dip tube to be more to the side, but I'm afraid I'll kink it.
I could build the hop spider and get a paint strainer bag, but I'm wondering if anyone has done this with 5 gallon batches in a 14 gallon keggle. This would probably be ideal, but I just can't imagine a bag being long enough to stay submerged to keep the hops in contact with the boil.
Thought about a bazooka screen, as that's what I have in my mash tun, and back when I was doing this a lot I never had a stuck sparge. But then again, pellet hops are definitely not crushed grain, so I don't have a lot of confidence in that idea.
What would you suggest as a cost effective way to keep these hops out and get me started back up again? I'll be able to afford to get more permanent solutions later in the year, but right now I'm trying to get my kegging setup going, so I'd like to be able to do that before putting much more money into the brew day side of things.
My biggest question is about the dip tube. It goes straight into the center, about a quarter inch off the bottom (it may even be from brewhardware.com, the dip tube, thermometer, and sightglass certainly look like his stuff, but I can't be certain). So here I am thinking, if I use this as my boil kettle (which I thought I was going to do), I can't whirlpool, as it'll suck everything up. I question whether or not a DIY hop spider bag holder thing with a paint strainer is going to give me enough slack to keep the hops in the boiling wort (only doing five gallons for now, and I'm not sure if the bags are long enough). I don't think I can just let it ride and hope that the dip tube doesn't get clogged.
So my question is what should I do? I'd like something to filter out the hops, but not sure what I should be using. I used to just cross my fingers and dump my cooled wort through a sanitized strainer into a bucket using just a plain aluminum stock pot that was my kettle, and hope too much didn't end up on the garage floor. I'm using a fermonster instead of a bucket this go round, so dumping just isn't going to work as the opening isn't big enough, and plus that was just way too much work with too big of a risk of all my hard work ending up on the garage floor.
I could bend the dip tube to be more to the side, but I'm afraid I'll kink it.
I could build the hop spider and get a paint strainer bag, but I'm wondering if anyone has done this with 5 gallon batches in a 14 gallon keggle. This would probably be ideal, but I just can't imagine a bag being long enough to stay submerged to keep the hops in contact with the boil.
Thought about a bazooka screen, as that's what I have in my mash tun, and back when I was doing this a lot I never had a stuck sparge. But then again, pellet hops are definitely not crushed grain, so I don't have a lot of confidence in that idea.
What would you suggest as a cost effective way to keep these hops out and get me started back up again? I'll be able to afford to get more permanent solutions later in the year, but right now I'm trying to get my kegging setup going, so I'd like to be able to do that before putting much more money into the brew day side of things.
