tri clover hopback

diatonic said:

Have you talked to GreenMonti? I think he's in, or near, Seattle... and a very talented welder/home brewer

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Thanks for the plug.

I think he might be looking for someone in his area? I am all for doing the work if he would like.

GreenMonti said:

Thanks for the plug.

I think he might be looking for someone in his area? I am all for doing the work if he would like.

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Where exactly are you, GreenMonti? Are you in Washington State?

Klaus

kshuler said:

Where exactly are you, GreenMonti? Are you in Washington State?

Klaus

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Yea, kinda in the Seattle area.

OK, here are the pieces. The end caps were on hold for the longest time. I am taking them tomorrow to get welded... don't know how long it will actually take. Getting excited.





Klaus

That's going to be a shiny hopback!

Wonder how many ounces of hops I can squeeze into it. the volume will be about 0.7 gallons minus the volume of the filter and the "injector rod" or whatever I should call that. Should be over a half gallon of space to full with hops. Welding should be done in a few days, then I have to find time to brew again-- off on vacation on the 17th and I work essentially every day until then.

Whether it works or not, it will be a pretty piece of shiny steel.

Klaus

pjj2ba said:

I made a giant hopback out of a corny keg. Actually my main point was to be able to quickly drain my boil kettle and then recirculate while chilling with minimal air exposure (I had some lactobacillus problems). I found that it also works well as a giant hop back.

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Could you please post a few pics of this set up. I have an old corny looking for a purpose this could be the ticket.

Thanks

OK-

The hopback is done. And for the mere price of both arms and both legs and a guy named guido knocking on your door and threatening bodily harm unless you pay back the loan amount in full, you too could have one of these babies. But I do have to say, it is pretty, and should work quite well, i would think. Just have to find the time to use it now. Here are the pics:







Now that I look at it, it it looks almost like an old Gatlin gun from some angles. Thanks for all the help and input.

Klaus

Is nice!..........

Looks great! : )

Looks great! Two more ferrules and larger couplings in the end caps would make a killer RIMS HEX.

That thing is sweet! Looks very similar to my RIMS.

Update-

Now have my 2nd batch since restarting brewing in the fermentor. Also first use of both a homemade hopstopper (worked PERFECTLY) as well as the 1st use of the hopback. It was also my first partial mash. Many many things that could have gone wrong due to sheer inexperience.

The hopback is AWESOME. I put 4 oz of leaf hops in it and could have put in more. It even had low enough resistance to drain very well via gravity (which led to some unexpected wort loss as I attempted to prime the pump and didn't bother to watch downstream lines until I saw wort pouring out of the counterflow chiller-- oops). The bottleneck in my procedure is the CFC which REALLY slows things down, and eventually I hop to get a therminator.

The biggest problem came from a different kind of equipment failure. This was my 1st partial mash (hurray!) ever, and I was attempting to use a cooler for the various steps. Unfortunately, the cooler does NOT hold heat well. I was using an infusion mash for 4 lbs of grain, and did both a glycan rest and a protein rest since I was using both flaked wheat and flaked rye. Unfortunately, while I was VERY impressed with how accurate the instructions were in beersmith for temperatures and volumes of infusion, and I hit the right temperatures right off the bat, the damn thing cooled rapidly and by the end of the step, the temp was way low. So I topped up with hot water to get it back to the right temp. This of course threw off the volume for the next infusion, and so on and so on. It just built and built and eventually my volumes were massive- I was worried that I was going to run out of space in my 28 qt cooler.

So I overshot my volume by a HUGE amount (more than a gallon more than I wanted), so instead of having an OG of 1.094, I have 1.080. Oh well, maybe the next thing I need to get is a decent cooler.

But I am very thrilled to report that the hopback is absolutely FANTASTIC. Low resistance, extremely easy to clean, and with silicone gaskets, can be sterilized by just baking in the oven!

Anyway, thanks for everyone's comments!

Klaus

ILOVEBEER said:

kshuler,

For what it is worth...save your money and do not buy a therminator............ IMO WAY OVERPRICED!
On Ebay I found a 40 plate chiller (therminator specs) with the inlets and outlets all on the same side and they already have 1/2" FNPT tapped. I have run 60 gallons through mine with no problems. If you like the way the blichmann is setup go for it.....personally I think the way mine is is user friendly. The two bottom are hose connections the top thermometer setup is on a SS QD. Here is my setup:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1629/chiller.jpg

And here is the seller incase you are interested:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brazed-Stainless-Steel-40-Plate-Heat-Exchanger_W0QQitemZ170464556604QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27b07ab63c

His sellers name is mambler2002. He always has them on there, based out of Hawaii....Good Luck!

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Thanks for this info-- I jut bought it today. Where do you get the adapter from garden hose to 1/2" NPT?

Klaus

Hi Klaus,

I bought them from morebeer.com for pretty cheap. By the way I have pumped almost 80 gallons through this thing and not a clog yet. I do however, backflush it with a pressure washer (low pressure) and bag everything I use in the BK. Good luck you won't be disappointed.

Looks great... Think I will get someone to build a smaller version for me