FAIL! Keggle hops filter and dip tube

[davepeds]

Our group is working on our equipment - putting together bits and pieces at a time. We built a sweet mash tun, a keggle, and bought a plate chiller. Then, I knew we'd have to filter out the hops at the bottom (pellets) for the chiller. From the local asian supermarket, I bought a stainless big dipper thing that you use to fish dumplings out of hot grease. We cut a hole in it for the dip tube, surrounded it with a copper scrubber, and gave it a shot. Ha! Awful. Plugged the chiller. We then poured the wort through a nylon bag (essentially bought and saved to make hop spider, that I freakin forgot about) and probably (definitely) aerated the hell out of hot wort. Then we poured it back into the keggle and sucked it through the dip tube - no hitches thereforth. Damnit.

 

[passedpawn]

Get that hop spider built

 

[Retrofit]

Consider whole leaf and nylon bags.

 

[CannibalAJ]

Build a hop spider! I used a stainless steel garbage disposal ring and some coat hooks so the spider hangs off the side of my kettle. You just have to "steep" the bag every few minutes to make sure that you get wet all the hops and mix in the hoppy goodness! It isn't perfect but gets rid of 99% of the hops that end up in the bottom of the primary.

I only spent like $10 at Lowes and built the dang thing while steeping my grains at the beginning of my boil!

 

[brewingmeister]

Was the copper scrubbie supposed to be a gasket?

If you had two of those dumpling catchers you could put them together and make something similar to the hop taco.

 

[davepeds]

the scrubbie was supposed to keep hops from slipping underneath, since the dumpling scooper didn't fit flush with the bottom. I thought about a hop taco after we failed and I learned about them. I think I'm going to put spiders in my beer first, then tacos second if that doesn't work.