$10 Stainless DIY Hop Blocker

[Stankonia]

Looks cool man! did you end up trying this with pellet hops too?

I know there was some talk on this thread of people putting pellet hops inside a tea-ball, but I didn't see anything mentioned if the setup in the OP worked with pellet also.

 

[jdd12364]

Updates on what? It sure seemed like the conversation was over.

msehler , I didn't realize you were the spokesperson for the group ?

If the hop ball works with pellet hops hows others peoples finding using this Item ????

Nothing in this hobby is really over , don't ya think ?

 

[EarthBound]

msehler , I didn't realize you were the spokesperson for the group ?

If the hop ball works with pellet hops hows others peoples finding using this Item ????

Nothing in this hobby is really over , don't ya think ?

No such thing as a dead thread on HBT!

Several people (including myself) has expressed interest in bigljd's design, especially with how it stands up to pellet hops. I was wondering about it myself!

 

[jdd12364]

No such thing as a dead thread on HBT!

Several people (including myself) has expressed interest in bigljd's design, especially with how it stands up to pellet hops. I was wondering about it myself!

I ordered one yesterday & will try it with pellet hops within the next 2 weeks , I will let you know what I find .

 

[l3asturd]

I ordered one yesterday & will try it with pellet hops within the next 2 weeks , I will let you know what I find .

....are the results in?

 

[Minjin]

Yes, curious myself about the results.

 

[milldoggy]

I made one the other day. I used the oval shaped tea thing, will post a pic tomorrow. Not brewing till next weekend, but I will post my results.

 

[Zamial]

Not that I have any 1st hand experience with this exact set up but I had a thought that may make it more usable with pellet hops. What if you filled the inside of the ball with some 100% SS scrubby pads? I think that may help catch extra pellet hops and stuff that may get through the bigger mesh.

 

[BOBrob]

I have used a smaller version with the pellet hop inside during boil. They will get through the screen. Zamial may have hit on a good solution with the scrubby pads. Time for another go around with that idea. THANKS Zamial! Cheers

 

[Crito]

wow, i am watching this thread

thx for the info

 

[zeus53219]

SWMBO has an identical infuser in the cabinet. Ive never seen her use it. It is mine NOW!

 

[milldoggy]

SWMBO has an identical infuser in the cabinet. Ive never seen her use it. It is mine NOW!

You know as soon as you punch a hole in it, she is going to want to use it.

 

[DakotaRules]

you know as soon as you punch a hole in it, she is going to want to use it.

+1

 

[theonetrueruss]

I use one of those for dry hopping. Odd I never thought of it as a hop blocker. Guess I need another one. It does hold pellet hops ok but not perfect... not sure how well it will hold them with the added pressure of wort flowing through though. The ss pad inside is a good idea. I'm not concerned with pellets making it into my fermentor so much as when I use whole or fresh hops they clog up my pump. This solution should work perfect. I'll probably only use it on brews that have fresh or whole hops though.

 

[zeus53219]

You know as soon as you punch a hole in it, she is going to want to use it.

"What honey, nope not sure where that's at, I don't drink tea. Ask the kids."

 

[BOBrob]

"What honey, nope not sure where that's at, I don't drink tea. Ask the kids."

Notme did it....honest

 

[Brew-ta-sauraus]

I've used paint strainers as hop bags plenty of times with pellet hops. I've had no significant problems. Its a bit of a mess to clean the bag and don't think for a second you'll get it all the way clean but it will be good enough to get you through several brewdays before it needs replacing.

I use paint strainers now as my hop bag and pellet hops are no problem they don't get thorugh at all.

 

[Brew-ta-sauraus]

Great idea here. I want to go free floating with hops as well. Heres my problem when I had my kegs converted the guy doing the welding used a 3 inch SS pipe welded in. He left the threads on one end for the ball valve but cut them off on the side going into the keggle. So I have just a hole on the inside of my keggle. Would love to use this option or even a bazooka screen but no dice. Any ideas on how to get around this with out having to replace the keggle? Wish he would have left threads on the inside.

 

[BOBrob]

Brew-Ta; you can make and use a hop spider for the pellet hops & stuff a SS pad in the 3" pipe for the trub filter. OR thread the inside of the pipe and adapt to your needs. Cheers

 

[bigljd]

I finally got around to testing this with pellet hops last week - it was an 11 gal batch of pale ale that had about 6 oz of pellet hops in it. Unfortunately it did not work as well with pellet hops as with whole hops - the screen got pretty plugged up with hop debris and I had to finish racking the beer to the fermenter with my autosiphon.

For brews with a small amount of pellet hops it'll probably work ok, but for a lot of pellet hops, not so good. One thing that helps is letting the wort settle for 10-15 minutes after chilling so that a lot of the hops are on the bottom of the kettle and not in suspension and getting sucked into the screen.

I am very happy with the performance of the tea ball when using whole hops - it works very well, especially if you give everything time to settle out before draining. For pellet hops it does not work as well. In my case I think I'll do either all whole hop brews with the hop stopper in use, or do all pellet hop brews with no hop stopper (pellet hop debris does not cause a problem plugging up my syphon tube).

 

[Crito]

I see that most of the home brew setups are not designed for pellet hops. Only way I see pellet hops being used is by people with autosiphons and imm. chillers. (like my old setup).

 

[nvr2low]

Plus I like the idea of free range hops - it's not fair to the hops to put them in a cage when they really want to be free to dance unrestrained thoughout your boil kettle...

may be a little late on this thread but that is by far the best thing I have read all day!

 

[Polarbeer]

Tea ball bought. Love amazon prime!

 

[mplsbrewer]

I just bought a tea ball and am getting the parts together to install it along with a pickup tube on the inside of my boil kettle. This is more of a question on the dip tube itself shown in the original photo. What type of fitting are you using between the dip tube and the 1/2" female NPT fitting on the bulkhead?

I've found a couple fittings online and just looking for some feedback on the different options out there:

http://www.brewershardware.com/1-2-Compression-X-1-2-MNPT-Fitting.html

http://weldlessfittings.com/kettlefittings.html

 

[bigljd]

I just bought a tea ball and am getting the parts together to install it along with a pickup tube on the inside of my boil kettle. This is more of a question on the dip tube itself shown in the original photo. What type of fitting are you using between the dip tube and the 1/2" female NPT fitting on the bulkhead?

I've found a couple fittings online and just looking for some feedback on the different options out there:

http://www.brewershardware.com/1-2-Compression-X-1-2-MNPT-Fitting.html

http://weldlessfittings.com/kettlefittings.html

That setup comes from Bargain Fittings. It's a SS pickup tube kit found here:

http://www.bargainfittings.com/inde...uct&keyword=side&category_id=0&product_id=157

It screws into a SS coupler, which is attached to the ball valve. It's all weldless stuff.

 

[mmcshmi11]

Resurrecting the 2 times dead thread here. I wanted to buy this, but don't want to pay $80. So I started looking here and found a ton of different screen sizes. I figured I could just fold and crimp the ends to make a tight seal and then somehow get it over the dip tube in my blichmann pot.

The only thing I'm wondering, how small is too small? If I get a super fine mesh will it block all the hops AND all the trub material to the point that I won't get any of those trub proteins in my fermenter. I don't want all the trub, but I think I want some...

 

[biertourist]

OMG, you're my hero!

You and I have almost the exact same kettle setup and I even own the same giant tea ball from Amazon.

I have absolutely been struggling with hops in the kettle since I got it and most of the available recommended solutions are focused on keggles and not flat-bottomed brew kettles; some of the other solutions don't work because I'm an electric brewer with a 5500w LD element like yours; Even putting hops in the giant tea ball thing and hop bags still doesn't work great as the hop bags get sucked into my ball valve and clog up the works.

I have one additional challenge beyond yours and that's that my vessel has a tri-clamps and a TC ball valve so adding a dip tube isn't quite so straight forward but Brewershardware.com has dip tubes that work with TCs and now that I've got a vision for a solution I can march ahead.



Thanks again for this, I'll look into it more this weekend and hopefully get the dip tube ordered.


Adam

 

[Zoltanar]

Hi guys.
I was wondering if some user are still at the "base" level like me and use a racking cane to transfer chilled wort to the fermenting vessel.
Do you think that using a teaball at the end of the cane, I could hold enough hops and most trub material out of my wort? Has anyone tried something similar?

Thanks for your opinions, comments, and ideas!

 

[philipCT]

Zoltanar:

Simplicity is bliss. Put a paint strainer bag over the bottom of the auto-siphon and that will keep out the bulk of the trub.

 

[Zoltanar]

Thanks. I'll try it this week-end - I am brewing with my uncle.
I guess I might have to remove some of the trub that will surely build outside the paint strainer bag...but worth a try!

Thanks again,
Zolt