New way to control Pellet Hop gunk!

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IslandLizard said:
You mean using it as a large filter inside the BK? That's what a few of us have been talking about already.

There are some problems how to connect the BK's bulkhead tube to the basket.

Poke a hole in the basket and slide it over the bulkhead stem or pickup tube before you fill the kettle?
Click to expand...

Sorry, it's a long thread and I admit I didn't read the whole thing. That's what I was thinking though. Even better would be some kind of funnel shaped opening in the filter so you could slide it on blind after the boil. I can picture the design in my head but was hoping someone already made something like this...
 
IslandLizard said:
You mean using it as a large filter inside the BK? That's what a few of us have been talking about already.

There are some problems how to connect the BK's bulkhead tube to the basket.

Poke a hole in the basket and slide it over the bulkhead stem or pickup tube before you fill the kettle?
Click to expand...
if you use pellets, the filter will clog. hell, with 2 oz of leaves my bazooka clogs and it's much coarser than one of these filters.

it might work for an unhoppy belgian with 1 oz of 60 min hops, but i'd be nervous about anything more than that.
 
Carlscan26 said:
Yambor44 - How is this working out for you? Have you had any issues with the boil being affected?
Click to expand...

So far so good. Just finishing up 10 gallons of a Hop Ottin-ish/Deviant Dales IPA clone I made with it and it is pretty fantastic.

I did a Zythos IPA this past week and threw all 12 ounces of pellets straight into the boil. Then I placed the round 6x14 300 micron filter in the fermentation bucket and drained thru that. By somes definition it probably clogged, meaning it was fine all the way thru each 5 gallons but when I lifted the filter it drained slowly. The wort coming out however was crystal clear. A little inconvenient to hold it for a few minutes to drain, but it did its job non the less. Plus, 12 ounces of pellet hops....I'm happy with it. I did the same thing on another batch I posted about with less hops but also an IPA and had zero drainage issues.

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Yambor44 said:
So far so good. Just finishing up 10 gallons of a Hop Ottin-ish/Deviant Dales IPA clone I made with it and it is pretty fantastic.

I did a Zythos IPA this past week and threw all 12 ounces of pellets straight into the boil. Then I placed the round 6x14 300 micron filter in the fermentation bucket and drained thru that. By somes definition it probably clogged, meaning it was fine all the way thru each 5 gallons but when I lifted the filter it drained slowly. The wort coming out however was crystal clear. A little inconvenient to hold it for a few minutes to drain, but it did its job non the less. Plus, 12 ounces of pellet hops....I'm happy with it. I did the same thing on another batch I posted about with less hops but also an IPA and had zero drainage issues.
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Can I ask why you didn't use the half moon for the 12 ozs?
 
I did read the entire thread and seeing the last few pictures I am afraid of going too big. I want a centered 8" 300 mesh for my keggle but am thinking to go 6" only in hopes of having more of a boil going on bigger is better for clogging, I am convinced the screen will drain in place as I drain into FV but to have the extra volume "not boiling" concerns me.

I do plan on lifting and doing the occasional scrape/drain throughout the process but the larger volume of no boil, the more dms you will accumulate.
In my keggle case, is an 8" a bad choice?
 
KaSaBiS: all I can tell ya is that the post I have around 943 shows a 5 degree temperature delta AND that beer (which I am having right now!) is freaking awesome. It is an IIPA clone of Zombie Dust and it was WAY bitter and full of hoppy goodness. I took it to a bottle share party this weekend and comments were that people liked it BETTER than 3 Floyd's as it was more bitter and hoppy. So at 207-8 it still gave me plenty of bitterness, plenty of aroma, and plenty of flavor from those wonderful Citra hops. Bigger seems to be better as bigger gives more surface area which equals less clogging. Just my opinion, but that is the way I see it. I detect no DMS, but to be honest I am not doing a pilsner usually when I use the screen and don't think I would need it if I was. Cheers!
 
stonebrewer said:
KaSaBiS: all I can tell ya is that the post I have around 943 shows a 5 degree temperature delta AND that beer (which I am having right now!) is freaking awesome. It is an IIPA clone of Zombie Dust and it was WAY bitter and full of hoppy goodness. I took it to a bottle share party this weekend and comments were that people liked it BETTER than 3 Floyd's as it was more bitter and hoppy. So at 207-8 it still gave me plenty of bitterness, plenty of aroma, and plenty of flavor from those wonderful Citra hops. Bigger seems to be better as bigger gives more surface area which equals less clogging. Just my opinion, but that is the way I see it. I detect no DMS, but to be honest I am not doing a pilsner usually when I use the screen and don't think I would need it if I was. Cheers!
Click to expand...

As a second on the bigger is better bit.... For my 52G kettles my screens are more than half the diameter of the kettle and sit just above my heating elements. The last beer I did was a step mash with about 100lbs of organic grain and the cold break was so knarly it was solid in the kettle and the outside of the screen. I was able to rinse it with muni pressure with my garden hose to clean it and the beer is awesome. I used to worry about the temp delta and lack of motion in the basket but I have produced (and reproduced) many stellar beers with these filters on several different system. Chad from arbor will also build you anything you want, he's made me several filters and even a false bottom for my new brewery! These simply work well!
 
marcb said:
As a second on the bigger is better bit.... For my 52G kettles my screens are more than half the diameter of the kettle and sit just above my heating elements. The last beer I did was a step mash with about 100lbs of organic grain and the cold break was so knarly it was solid in the kettle and the outside of the screen. I was able to rinse it with muni pressure with my garden hose to clean it and the beer is awesome. I used to worry about the temp delta and lack of motion in the basket but I have produced (and reproduced) many stellar beers with these filters on several different system. Chad from arbor will also build you anything you want, he's made me several filters and even a false bottom for my new brewery! These simply work well!
Click to expand...

<Insert green from envy> Now your just showing off! :D Gotta fly up from SD when I am there later in the year and see your system and take you out for a Pliny!
 
stonebrewer said:
<Insert green from envy> Now your just showing off! :D Gotta fly up from SD when I am there later in the year and see your system and take you out for a Pliny!
Click to expand...

lol! Sorry man - I just wanted to close the loop on the bigger is better thing. That's why I don't think I've ever had the trouble cleaning or with my filters clogging even with knarly cold break (pictured in another one of my threads) I've never seen break material be so solid.... You are welcome to come by anytime we're going to do a monster brew day on July 27th and run the system at full capacity! It looks like I'm headed to NYC, not DC in the next couple of weeks but am looking forward to having some homebrew out your way too! Cheers!
 
Anyone know how many hops the keg hopper can hold without packing up?
I was thinking about using it in a speidel tank because i have a 9oz dry hop coming up, thanks.
 
Has anyone with a plate chiller/march pump setup tried using one of these on the INTAKE of the kettle valve? This would leave the hops OUTSIDE the filter and allow you to recirculate during chilling without fear of clogging the chiller. I emailed Chad and he kind of poo pooed the idea, but what do you all think?
 
Demus said:
Has anyone with a plate chiller/march pump setup tried using one of these on the INTAKE of the kettle valve? This would leave the hops OUTSIDE the filter and allow you to recirculate during chilling without fear of clogging the chiller. I emailed Chad and he kind of poo pooed the idea, but what do you all think?
Click to expand...

I haven't tried it but there are definitely folks here who have, I believe the issue is that the cold break clogs up the inside of the filter but again I haven't tried it this way....
 
Any plate chiller/pump user folks out there care to comment? I love hoppy beers but shy away from making them, especially with pellets. Looking for a once and for all solution...
 
Demus said:
Has anyone with a plate chiller/march pump setup tried using one of these on the INTAKE of the kettle valve? This would leave the hops OUTSIDE the filter and allow you to recirculate during chilling without fear of clogging the chiller. I emailed Chad and he kind of poo pooed the idea, but what do you all think?

Any plate chiller/pump user folks out there care to comment? I love hoppy beers but shy away from making them, especially with pellets. Looking for a once and for all solution...
Click to expand...

I have one of these, and a plate chiller and Chugger pump.

With my setup, initially used a simple bazooka screen on the kettle outlet valve port, in addition to the tall, cylindrical hop screen from Chad. The hop screen contained the hop gunk, and the bazooka screen blocked most of the break material.

Now I've replaced the bazooka screen with a Hop Stopper (pickup tube enshrouded in a frisbee-shaped wire mesh pouch). I got cocky and stopped using Chad's hop screen, but a recent brew had a little too much break material and hops, and my Hop Stopper got clogged during chilling. So now I'm back to using both.

In any case, using either combination (hop screen + bazooka, or hop screen + Hop Stopper), I've never had an issue with my pump or plate chiller. I use clear tubing, so I can see the wort flowing, and it's perfectly clear. All of the gunk (both hop pellet and break material) remains in the kettle, either in the hop screen or stuck to the outside of the Hop Stopper.
 
+1 on kombat's post. Read through this and you will see I have done the same. I use a chugger and recirculate through one of Chad's wire mesh tubes. I also boil with one ( I have two plus a bazooka plus a filter on my funnel). No issues with clogging using a larger mesh tube in the boil, the smaller to recirculate through, and the bazooka and filter on the funnel. I used to have the filter on the funnel clog 3-4 times per 6.5G carboy. Now I get a few grains of break material after filling two of them up. Color me a happy camper!
 
Here's a new twist! Chad made me a grain basket for the 15g kettle! Fits like a glove, the pics are a little jacked so I took one with the flash and one w/o. This is a 400 micron basket so should be good to go for mashing in for BiAB and has a recirc line through a bulkhead in the lid.

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I was thinking about doing a larger one for my 20G tun. Can you take some pix of it outside of the kettle as well? Looks like there is a handle there. Is that for the screen? What is that thing with the holes?
 
Sure, I'll do it tomorrow! It's a fryer/steamer basket that I measured for the inside tolerance and chad made a basket for with a flush bottom. The handle is actually on the strainer basket.
 
wobdee said:
Chad made me this mash basket a few months ago for my 8 gal kettle. Works great for BIAB.
Click to expand...

That looks good! I like the BBQ grate idea I drain the grains or even a light sparge. How's your efficiency?
 
marcb said:
That looks good! I like the BBQ grate idea I drain the grains or even a light sparge. How's your efficiency?
Click to expand...

I have been thinking of trying a little sparge but with full volume no sparge BIAB I'm getting 75-85% mash efficiency so it's kind a hard for me to justify another step for a couple more gravity points.
 
wobdee said:
I have been thinking of trying a little sparge but with full volume no sparge BIAB I'm getting 75-85% mash efficiency so it's kind a hard for me to justify another step for a couple more gravity points.
Click to expand...

How do you calculate your efficiency?
 
marcb said:
Here's a new twist! Chad made me a grain basket for the 15g kettle! Fits like a glove, the pics are a little jacked so I took one with the flash and one w/o. This is a 400 micron basket so should be good to go for mashing in for BiAB and has a recirc line through a bulkhead in the lid.
Click to expand...

How's that grain basket working out? I was contemplating this exact thing!

Mike
 
ftlstrings said:
How's that grain basket working out? I was contemplating this exact thing!

Mike
Click to expand...

Working great. I haven't used it for all grain yet but in my testing to date looks like it will be perfect. I think the ideal scenario is to have one of these for mashing and a smaller one for hops in the boil as I did a water test with this in at boiling and while it worked there seemed to be considerable force pent up around the strainer basket (the part with the big holes that came with the kettle) that were pushing up. It would probably work fine but I am always paranoid about burps of boiling liquid coming out. So the process would be to mash with the strainer, drain, remove and then put in a smaller basket for hops in the boil. Make sense?
 
marcb said:
Working great. I haven't used it for all grain yet but in my testing to date looks like it will be perfect. I think the ideal scenario is to have one of these for mashing and a smaller one for hops in the boil as I did a water test with this in at boiling and while it worked there seemed to be considerable force pent up around the strainer basket (the part with the big holes that came with the kettle) that were pushing up. It would probably work fine but I am always paranoid about burps of boiling liquid coming out. So the process would be to mash with the strainer, drain, remove and then put in a smaller basket for hops in the boil. Make sense?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it makes sense. I tried the same thing and the larger basket in the boil creates an air pocket underneath that will move it around and burp on occasion. I use the large basket strictly for the mash and a smaller hop basket for the boil.
 
Just racked a batch of Burton Ale to a keg for conditioning. I used one of Chad's Better Bottle tubes for dry hopping again (4th time) & again it worked great!!
 
govner1 said:
Just racked a batch of Burton Ale to a keg for conditioning. I used one of Chad's Better Bottle tubes for dry hopping again (4th time) & again it worked great!!
Click to expand...

Are you using it with the hops loose or inside of the tube?
 
I finally got around to posting a video showing how easy it is to clean these filters, it's about a minute long. This is after a 90 minute boil on a PTE clone with 4.5lbs of CTZ, Simcoe and Centennial hops.

[ame]http://youtu.be/OF9KlSjpLqQ[/ame]
 
My water pressure seems similar to yours. I've noticed a big difference if you let the break material dry on for a few minutes. I have been hanging the basket from a chain above the kettle and letting it drip for a few minutes during the hectic tail end of a brew session, but the stuff doesn't come off as easily when I do this. I am gonna go to an overnight soak or perhaps pressure washer routine.
 
I just had a thought...

The back story:
I wasn't thinking, and just threw in the 60min addition of pellet hops without using my hop strainer. Total brain fart, and I instantly thought "oh well, only 2oz total" (pumpkin ale). So... I had a lot of hop material and cold break after boil, and ended up dumping about 1/4gal wort out.

I was draining into a bucket for primary, and in hindsight, I should have just hung the strainer on the bucket, and ran the beer through it. In fact, I think I will go that route from now on, when I am using a bucket, as I do 90% of the time, at least for primary. Then I don't need to even worry about whirlpool. Just chill, and start draining from the ball valve, through the filter hanging on the bucket!

Anyone tried that?
 

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