Straining Wort

I've been having trouble straining my wort. Currently I'm using a wire strainer to do the job as I pour the wort into the primary fermenter. This has caused trouble as I have burned my girlfriends hand giving her 2nd degree burns while she holds the strainer. Is there an easier method to straining wort? Also is there a good system for putting molten hot wort into the fermenter?

 

Most people cool their wort down to yeast pitching temperatures before it ever leaves the kettle...

Iv heard of glass carboys cracking from the heat and plastic jugs warping/leaching.

Put the kettle into an ice bath if you have no other way to cool it (immersion chiller, plate chiller, etc.)

 

When I used to do this, I really liked my funnel with a filter on the bottom of it

 

I do this but it seems a bit tedious. There has to be an easier way. Doing this is how my gf got burned. The strainer clogged up with hops and shot on to her hand. No bueno.

 

Good to know. I'll cool the wort prior to transferring it into the fermenter from now on. Thanks!

 

Yeh cool the wort that is in your kettle with an ice bath in the sink. Place your kettle in the sink (plugged) place ice around and fill with cool water. Dont fill to top of sink because you may need to add more ice. keep stirring your wort with a sterilized spoon (this will help cool faster) cool to 85 degrees. pour into fermenter and top off to 5 gal. Should be about 75 degrees by then and aerate and pitch yeast.

 

An experienced brewer I know told me that he strains it. I've done without straining it and it turned out fine. I guess I'll go back to that on future brews. If a recipe calls for adding dry hops... That just means I add them periodically to the fermenting wort?

 

If your pouring it into a bucket, first of all you should have cooled it down to a reasonable temperature and secondly you should have a big enough strainer that your poor girlfriend doesn't have to hold the damn thing. I feel sorry for her!

 

Yeah I felt terrible for her. Now I know though.

 

"dry hopping" is usually done in a secondary fermenter, or in the case of not using a secondary, in the primary after the lion share of the fermentation has finished. Most people add them all at once, but I have heard of adding rounds (and removing the previous round). Using a nylon mesh bag works very well with whole hops, pellets need to settle and be transfered off of.

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Oneida-Oversink-Colander/15149549 , the strainer I use...$15 at wal mart

 

Just bought that exact model the other day.

 

I use a large dual layer fine mesh strainer I got cheaper from midwest than the ones at walmart. It's about 10" in diameter with hooks on the strainer side & a handle. The whole thing fits across a BB ale pail for straining all the hoppy grainy gunk out while filling fermenter.
Pouring through this strainer in a circular motion with chilled wort & top off water makes it come out the bottom of the strainer like rain,aerating the wort. Then I use a plastic paddle to stir roughly for 5 minutes to mix wort & top off water,& aerate a bit more. Then take OG sample,pitch yeast & seal'er up.
I get less trub at racking time this way,which means more clear beer for me.
And don't dry hop in primary till after FG is reached & the beer is settling out clear. Otherwise,the hop oils coat the settling yeast cells & are lost. Dry hopping for 7-10 days is the most common.

 

I think I use same process ad uniondr

My strainer is the china cap design from a restaurant supply. More expensive than the Midwest strainer - about $30, works very well. I use loose pellet hops in the kettle which provides maximum hop utilization. I also use whirlfloc. Chill with immersion chiller, stirring wort every few min while chilling. As soon as the wort hits pitching temp I drain it out the kettle ball valve through the strainer into the bucket. I need to add the wort to the strainer nest the edge, not the center, allowing the wort to run over the fine mesh. I also move my transfer hose in a circular motion as I go...around the top edge. Seems to steadily sweep hop gunk down to the tip. At the end I have to hold the strainer in one hand else the tip would be in the wort in the bucket. When the kettle is dry I do a flipping pancakes without a spatula motion with the gunk in the strainer, compressing it into a compact ball, squeezing out the last of the wort. Here are a couple pics.

 

I like the metal collar on yours. Would def help with loose hops,especially raw hops. And since my BIAB paint strainer bag is listed as course mesh,it lets about 1/2C or so of grainy floury gunk get through. But that small amount isn't too bad to deal with. And pouring all through these strainers in a circular motion makes the liquid come out the bottom like rain,aerating as you go. The great thing about fine mesh strainers is they catch the stuff the paint strainer bag lets through. The dual layer strainer I use doesn't glog unless I'm using raw (whole) hops loosely in the BK. Since I started using hop/grain sacks for pellet & whole hops,I get less mess at straining time.

 

On my current system whole hops are PITA because they immediately clog the valve. They have to go into bags.

 

Yup. They can make a big,clotted up mess in no short order. I use muslin grain sacks for whole leaf hops & muslin hop sacks for pellet hops. I'll say something related here too. I was emptying,rinsing & boiling the used sacks to clean them before a PBW soak. Just yesterday,I emptied & rinsed them,Then put real cold tap water in an ice cream bucket & dunked/soaked them for a short time instead. They seemed to come out a bit cleaner at that point than boiling. So I squeezed them out & put them in this tupperware sandwhich container I use for the PBW soak. Should be clean as new by Saturday. Rinse squeeze & hang to dry before storage in a zip lock bag. I use the empty vinator box to store bags of hop/grain socks,airlocks,extra spigots,etc.

 

I just tried the paint strainer bag (available anywhere paint is sold) held over the kettle end of my siphon tube. I was amazed at how well it worked! Doesn't clog and they are super cheap. Not only cool the wort to pitching temp, but let it sit undisturbed for 10 min, most of the trub settles quite well.

 

The guys at my LHBS sold me a strainer that fits over the funnel without having to hold it. That being said, it sucked! Clogged before I even got a half gallon out. Strike two for suggestions from them. Strike one was a wort covered ceiling due to a half inch blow off tube they sold me. My next batch I will be doing as uniondr suggested and using bags for my hops and a paint strainer. I am a painting contractor and have a supply in my shop. It never even crossed my mind ti put the two together.
Good luck.

 

You don't have to worry about a little bit of stuff getting into your primary bucket so much. I usually use a small hand strainer to clean stuff off the top before I transfer. If it's especially messy at bottling time... I just did a raspberry wheat with 4 lbs of frozen raspberries in secondary. I put a muslin bag around the racking cane with a sanitized rubber band when I transferred to the bottling bucket and didn't see a single seed get through.

 

Ya i put 1 gallon jug of spring water in the freezer and 1 in the fridge a few hrs before i start my brew. I do extract and not a full boil. But i fill up both sinks side my side with water and ice. And i put the kettle in the ice bath. And when that water gets warm i move to the next sink i already have full and cold. Drain water from first sink fill it back up carefully and add ice again. Once second sink warms up transfer again. And at thin point within 5-10 min you can cool your wort down to 100-95 F. I then pour the gallon jug from the fridge into carboy add wort. Then top off with the 2 gallon jugs adding cooler water as needed. I use the gallon jug from the freezer and 1 from room temp. I get into the 64-66 F Range everytime. And it takes less this an 45min to cool my wort in the sink. I don't know if ice batch will do as well in the summer as the winter. Cause the water coming out of my faucet is in the low 40s i think. But will see oh and i never strain my wort i just dump most of it in and leave as much of the sludge at the bottom as possible. It all settles fine in the primary for me at least.

 

I also made one of these... it ran me closer to $30 than the $20 the video says, but well worth it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTNB9zBIcvQ

 

With your addition of the raspberries did you sterilize them before you added them to the secondary? I have been thinking of adding fruit to a wheat but never have.

 

Another reason why I use plastic fermenters. The wide opening allows me to use a large,dual layer fine mesh strainer to get out the gunk & aerate the wort & top off water. I prefer less trub & more clear beer to rack off to the bottling bucket. Less gunk to clean out afterwards as well. A little more work at the begining means less work later.
And hop sacks/grain bags for pellet/whole leaf hops in the boil & dry hop. Paint strainer bag in the BK/MT for partial mash. Or use the hop/grain sacks in the boil for AE & the paint strainer bag in the fermenter when adding wort & top off. Either will work.

 

I use these. Only used it once so far but really cleared the trub out. I use the 400 and 600 micron together. They fit right on top of an ale pale, or any normal sized bucket.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=24071&clickid=redirect

 

I use a strainer, I just bought the large SS one they had at my LHBS. It works really nice, fits perfectly on the top of the bucket and as long as I do a nice steady pour, I haven't had any clogging issues. Only clogging issue i did have was the first time I used it and just did a mass dump. Now I try to move it around a little bit while pouring, to help aerate the wort a little bit as it goes through the screen.

 

That's what I do with mine & it works great.

 

Nope. As I understand it, there is no need to sanitize them if they're frozen. I just sanitized the outside of the bags before I cut them open.

 

Does this sit over the bucket or do you have to hold it?

 

It sits on the bucket, little too big, just have to watch how far you pull aside the hop material. otherwise you spill a little over the outside of the bucket.

 

I used a paint strainer bag in my last brew. Very easy.

 

My momma told me that the easiest-to-clean mess is the one you don't make.

+1 on Yooper's paint filter bag. Really works. Costs a couple bucks. Holds over 5# of grain. During the boil, I put hops in the legs from an old pair of pantyhose. There is minimal trub in the primary bucket after using the paint filter and panty hose.