Anyone have one of these filters?

[Rob2010SS]

Looking to buy a bigger filter for filtering hoppy brews. Looking at this one. Anyone use one of these? Happy with it? I'm looking at this specific one because I have an Amazon gift card that will cover it.

 

[jekeane]

I use this on a 7bbl kit and its works for that. It is massive for homebrew scale. what size batches are you doing? The mesh filters on these are quite fine as well and will clog. You can make a filter using a Vacmotion filter and two screw in tc to npt fittings for about $50 that would scale a lot better. VacMotion product: PLS-R10F-NCB-020 - 1 FNPT Regular Series Nylon Strainer with Clear Nylon Bowl, Buna gasket and 20 mesh Stainless Steel Screen is the one I use at home I believe i got mine on amazon but its out of stock their atm. I got a 1/2" FNPT fiter housing and two 1/2" npt to tc fitting off amazon. I use it at work occasionally too because the filter on our big one is to fine.

Edit: The vacmotion is a post boil filter. not sure if that is what you are looking for.

 

[IslandLizard]

At what stage do you want to filter?
Kettle to fermenter or from dry hopped fermenter to keg?

I agree with @jekeane, it will likely plug up in no time.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I'm wanting to filter from dry hopped fermenter to keg. I followed the advice of others and tossed my dry hops in loose (vs bagging them) on my NEIPA that i just kegged (18 gallons to fermenter, 34oz hops split between 2 additions, fermenting in a unitank). I crashed for 2 days at 34*F and it was a f***ing nightmare to transfer. Kept having all kinds of clogging issues. I stopped and left maybe half a keg in the fermenter so I could buy a small bouncer filter and get the rest of the beer out. Because the bouncer filter is so small, I ran into that clogging and had to switch out the mesh a couple of times.

However, I have seen a lot of people using filters like the one I have linked above and from what I've heard, they work well. I get that it's big for a 15 gallon batch, but I want to be able to transfer my hoppy brews from fermenter to keg in one shot. I want to keep dry hopping loose as extraction is better but the hops do not settle as well for me as they do for everyone else apparently.

 

[augiedoggy]

This appears to be a miniature version of the one I have judging by the body size in relation to that 1.5" tc port... I no longer use mine because as mentioned it plugged up very quickly. I only used mine a couple times when I tried not using my hop spiders... I found the hop spiders were a much more effective and less wasteful solution. I suggest putting your hops in some sort of container when putting them in the fermenter. I have one of those too but I have dry hopped both ways in the conical fermenters and I dump the hops prior to kegging. you are using the lower side port on your unitank and not the dump port to keg right? Normally this is where you would turn the racking arm to get clear beer above any yeast or hops that may still be lingering in the bottom of the conical.

 

[Rob2010SS]

This appears to be a miniature version of the one I have judging by the body size in relation to that 1.5" tc port... I no longer use mine because as mentioned it plugged up very quickly. I only used mine a couple times when I tried not using my hop spiders... I found the hop spiders were a much more effective and less wasteful solution. I suggest putting your hops in some sort of container when putting them in the fermenter. I have one of those too but I have dry hopped both ways in the conical fermenters and I dump the hops prior to kegging. you are using the lower side port on your unitank and not the dump port to keg right? Normally this is where you would turn the racking arm to get clear beer above any yeast or hops that may still be lingering in the bottom of the conical.

So, the first dry hop addition I did, I bagged them using a small BIAB bag, weighed down with some stainless steel bearings. Worked well until it came time to do the second dry hop. The hops in that bag swelled up and wedged themselves in the middle of the cooling coil so the second dry hop had to go in loose, which was fine. I WANT to dry hop loose for the better extraction anyway.

In regards to your other question in regards to which port I'm transferring out of, I am transferring out of the racking port, NOT the dump port on the bottom. When I assembled the fermenter, I had the racking arm pointed straight to the side. Perhaps this is something I should have done differently and pointed it straight up?

I also am dumping the hops prior to kegging. I dumped them 2 or 3 times I believe. I have a sight glass on the bottom of the fermenter so I can see when I'm getting hops and when I'm getting beer. Once I start seeing beer in that, I stop, let it crash a bit longer and do another dump the next day.

Even after all that, I still had a hell of a time getting the beer out. Maybe crashing 2 days at 34*F isn't enough? Do I need to crash longer?

 

[augiedoggy]

So, the first dry hop addition I did, I bagged them using a small BIAB bag, weighed down with some stainless steel bearings. Worked well until it came time to do the second dry hop. The hops in that bag swelled up and wedged themselves in the middle of the cooling coil so the second dry hop had to go in loose, which was fine. I WANT to dry hop loose for the better extraction anyway.

In regards to your other question in regards to which port I'm transferring out of, I am transferring out of the racking port, NOT the dump port on the bottom. When I assembled the fermenter, I had the racking arm pointed straight to the side. Perhaps this is something I should have done differently and pointed it straight up?

I also am dumping the hops prior to kegging. I dumped them 2 or 3 times I believe. I have a sight glass on the bottom of the fermenter so I can see when I'm getting hops and when I'm getting beer. Once I start seeing beer in that, I stop, let it crash a bit longer and do another dump the next day.

Even after all that, I still had a hell of a time getting the beer out. Maybe crashing 2 days at 34*F isn't enough? Do I need to crash longer?

The racking arm is designed to be turned down in the beginning to keep solids out and then slowly turned up until the beer runs clear when draining. We dump a few times over a couple days prior to draining out conicals giving the hops and yeast more time to settle each time.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I'll give that a shot next time. I'll have the arm pointed down and when it comes time to keg, I'll rotate it upward.

Sounds like I did what you try and do - dumping multiple times over a couple of days.

Do you crash longer than 2 days?

 

[augiedoggy]

I'll give that a shot next time. I'll have the arm pointed down and when it comes time to keg, I'll rotate it upward.

Sounds like I did what you try and do - dumping multiple times over a couple of days.

Do you crash longer than 2 days?

sometimes longer, sometimes only 2 days..

 

[Rob2010SS]

I have a couple of things to try then next time. That's a start.

I am curious about these filters though. I do see some people using them with some success but I admittedly haven't talked to anyone on them in depth.

 

[augiedoggy]

well It depends on how much solids you are passing through them.. Every time I tried using mine (which is very large btw) it plugged solid withing the first couple mins.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I did a search on hop spiders and stumbled on the cylindrical hop spiders you can drop in the fermenter. You mentioned you use hop spiders. Do you use these ones for the fermenter?

 

[augiedoggy]

I did a search on hop spiders and stumbled on the cylindrical hop spiders you can drop in the fermenter. You mentioned you use hop spiders. Do you use these ones for the fermenter?

no I used them in my boil kettle. at the brewpub though for fermenter, we just dump the hops in loose at first we bagged them and tied them to a string to prevent them from dropping to bottom.. now we just pour them in.