Anyone Whirlpool in a bottom-drain keggle?

[SmokeyRydr]

I've got an inverted, bottom draining, keggle that I want to use as a brew kettle.

The plan is to whirlpool after the boil and simply dump the first pint or two of hotbreak before running the wort thu the chiller.

My hope is to 1) simplify cleanup by dumping the hotbreak first, 2) maximizing my BK yeild.

If I use a hopspider to contain the hop matter, I hope to not clog the 1/2" bottom valve.

Does anyone do this? Is this a good or bad idea?

FYI I've got two other ports on the keggle to run the whirlpool without using the bottom drain.

 

[Vale71]

Hot break is really fickle and will disgregate at the slightest disturbance. That's why the standard practice is to drain the clear wort and leave the trub undisturbed as much as possible. I'm guessing you'll get some of the trub and then the rest will mix again with wort, so you'll have the choice of either loosing more wort or getting some trub in the boil kettle despite the whirlpool.

 

[postalbunny]

You may have luck with some kind of trub guard around the drain...

https://www.homebrewing.org/The-Trub-Trapper_p_7092.html

I don't think dumping the first bit of wort will work as expected. Once you start drawing off the trub/hops will mix with wort as it pulls in. If you do, you'll want to drain off slow as can be.

I would just buy a side pickup tube and swap it out for the center drain tube you have. Unless this is draining due to inverting the keg to use the 1.5" TC as a center dump then that's a diff story... then it may be worth installing another drain just for grabbing wort when done. The pro's use a center drain for getting all the stuff out, but use a side pickup /w trub damn for grabbing the wort trub free.

 

[SmokeyRydr]

wrapping this thread up: I'm going to use the bottom drain for only cleaning and trub-dump. I'll use a side pickup tube and whirlpool ports wort out/in.
This config allows me to both whirlpool and CIP.