chemman14
Well-Known Member
Please report back with your results!
Blichmann Hop Blocker & Immersion Chiller in 10G Boilermaker
- Thread starter BrewThruYou
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Please report back with your results!
i will. the whole hop filtering thing seems to be a common struggle for those who don't want to use hop bags. i have blichmann's hopblocker which does not work for me, i've tried hop bags which i don't like to use and recently i got the HopStopper which worked pretty good until the last gallon then it started clogging. this morning i took my dremel tool to the end of the diptube and put a series of notches around the end of the tube to see if that will keep it from clogging. it's hard to tell if the tube itself is clogged or if the tube is pressed against the mesh and that area of mesh is getting clogged. maybe i'll make a video of my next wort chilling and post it up here.
chemman14
Well-Known Member
According to the site that should already be done.
"The bottom of the dip tube is notched such that wort flows into it from all sides."
Is there any reason to switch out the standard boilermaker dip tube with this longer one? Also, what gauge of mesh is on the hopstopper? 30/40?
BrewThruYou
Well-Known Member
The dip tube is longer to reach towards the center of the pot. That way, the hopstopper can be spread out in the center for more surface area. I'm guessing you want to use the regular tip tube and make a stopper in the corner.
Not sure on mesh size, but there's a few threads on people making their own and they list their supplies.
A little update in case anyone is still pondering...
I was going to post last week but I had terrible results. The gasket in the ball valve that seals the dip tune failed. Everything was great up until the wort dropped below the valve line. That caused me to lose my siphon and I had to dump the kettle, trub and all into my fermenter.
Today I tried again but switched to pumping the wort out. Here is a shot of the flow rate:
This took 25 minutes to transfer 5.5 gallons
Here is a shot of trub I was up against. A 1.073 IPA with 5.25oz of hops. .25 oz leaf, 5oz pellets. There was a good 3/8" of hops/break on the screen afterwards.
I was going to post last week but I had terrible results. The gasket in the ball valve that seals the dip tune failed. Everything was great up until the wort dropped below the valve line. That caused me to lose my siphon and I had to dump the kettle, trub and all into my fermenter.
Today I tried again but switched to pumping the wort out. Here is a shot of the flow rate:
This took 25 minutes to transfer 5.5 gallons
Here is a shot of trub I was up against. A 1.073 IPA with 5.25oz of hops. .25 oz leaf, 5oz pellets. There was a good 3/8" of hops/break on the screen afterwards.
If you don't watch the outlet hose this will happen. The key is to close the discharge valve on the pump discharge side as soon as bubbles start appearing in the mash run outlet hose. Wait 10 to 20 seconds and then crack the valve open. It will take 5 to 10 minutes to get that last gallon or two out but you won't break the siphon. Once you do it a time or two it becomes pretty easy.
jammin said:
That's odd. I've got the hop stopper with a 20g boilermaker and haven't had any flow rate issues. 10 gallon batches with anywhere from 2 to 10 oz of hops have transferred as quickly as my plate chiller could keep up
Man, I'm tempted to call shenanigans here.
I've tried the hop stopper twice now, on 5.5g batches in a 10g Boilermaker. The first try my recipe (IPA) used five ounces of pellets, I had my 815-PL output ball valve set half open from the beginning of the transfer, and as soon as I saw some bubbles in the tubing I closed the valve down until the tube refilled. At that exact point there was still over 2 gallons of wort in the kettle.
I kept the valve nearly closed and drain rate was nearly imperceptible, the impeller was clearly not happy, and the wort coming out of my plate chiller was nearly matching my well water temperature (55°F). I had to close down the water side to get the wort warmed back up to something near pitching temperature. In any case, those two gallons took 20 minutes to drain, on top of the twice-as-long time to drain down to those two gallons, and I had to swipe some of the pellet mush off the mesh with my spoon to keep the flow going.
Virtually the same thing happened on the second batch, which used a mere three ounces of pellets (ESB). This time I tried cutting the initial flow rate a bit more to see if it helped, and I was at least ready to cut back the water flow through the chiller. I'm not sure going even slower made any difference, as there were over 1.5 gallons of wort in the kettle when it tried to break suction, and that half gallon difference might be completely attributable to using 40% less hops.
Again, it took twice the time to drain the kettle down to the last gallon and a half, plus close to 20 minutes more to drain that gallon and a half.
I'm planning on upping my hardware for 10 gallon batches. The stopper will be the same size, but there will be double the hops for the same recipes. I expect things could get ugly in a hurry.
When I used nylon bags I could literally drain the kettle at the system's max flow rate, as my well water is not a gating factor on chilling speed through the long thirty plate chiller. Close to 6 gallons in a few minutes.
As much as I hoped the stopper would be the solution to both maximizing hop utilization and keeping hops out of my plate chiller, so far it's proved to be a significant process throttle. I'm not sure I'm going to keep it...
Cheers
my 5 and 10 gallon batches have drained quickly until the last gallon or so. in fact too quickly, my wort temp yesterday was 78 degrees and my water is about 60 degrees. i thought i had the valve closed enough but i guess not. i did a batch using leaf hops and it drained all but a few ounces from my keggle (5 gallon batch) in short order, i didn't time it but it was fast.
BrewThruYou
Well-Known Member
This is the OP.
As much as I hated the hopstopper when using an immersion chiller, I had zero issues using a CFC (borrowed). I did a gravity drain with 3 ounces of pellet hops and drained it pretty slowly (by necessity to bring water to a half-decent temp in the fermenter). It worked just as advertised - nice thick hop cake on top of the mesh. It took me about 17-20 minutes...I had about 70° groundwater, so I needed to go slow to get as close as possible. I didn't change the ball valve's position during the drain. I had a little bit of hop matter first enter the fermenter - I'm guessing it got through the mesh during the boil. But after that, smooth sailing.
I'm unfamiliar with using a pump, so I'm not sure the best way to dial that in. I'm definitely going to keep my hopstopper though.
Good to hear other users posting their experiences and successes with the Hop Stopper.
I think there might be a little something to time you posted. I drained 5.5 gallons yesterday over 25 minutes. You drained (5.5 gallons?) in ~20 minutes. We both had good results; you with siphon, myself with pump. I believe I could have went a little faster even but wasn't in a hurry.
I would suggest shooting for ~ 4 minutes/gallon as a good starting point. If you have a site tube on your boil kettle, it would be easy to see if you are on track over the first gallon or two.
