clogged hop filter in brew kettle

[ny_touhey]

recently bought a 4"x10" 300micron hop filter for brew kettle. i've had mixed results with this..used several times so far. The quality is fine/good, but I've found that "proteins" in the wort, clog the fine mesh, and seem to prevent good flow of liquids(hop oils?) through the mesh.

By clogging i mean, that if i lift the wort filled filter completely out of the kettle, the wort will only trickle out.

I stopped using irish moss, as i believe it caused the issue. Next brew session was done without irish moss and I don't recall any clogging issues.

Yesterday brewed with mostly pilsener malt withOUT irish moss, and had same clogging issue.

Anyone experience this? Any solutions or tips to avoid clogging, as this device would otherwise function as desired.

 

[kombat]

Yup, I bought a Hop Stopper for my boil kettle to prevent protein and break material from getting out of my kettle and clogging my plate chiller. I also bought a cylindrical 300 micron hop screen that hangs off the rim of my kettle and contains the pellet hop matter. I had the same issue as you. During chilling, the Hop Stopper would become so caked over with break material that wort was unable to pass through it to the pickup tube. I'd lose suction on my pump and be unable to finish chilling the batch.

So what did I do?

I took it out of my kettle. My Hop Stopper has been sitting on my shelf for almost a year now. Anyone want it? Even when it only had to contend with break material (since the hops were already contained elsewhere), it still clogged up. It was a pain to clean. I just stopped using it and haven't really noticed a difference. My plate chiller has only hinted at clogging on two occasions, and even then, all I had to do was turn off the pump for a second, and turn it back on.

I suggest you ditch the filter.

 

[nealperkins]

Yes, they plug...

But, you can get yourself a long (plastic) spoon and gently scrape the sides and bottom of the screen to open up the pores.

This helps but is not a total solution. This causes some of the hops to get pushed through the screen but, most stay in.

This problem also means that we have concerns about the wort / hop contact as well.