Filtering hops

[noemptykegs]

I always use a paint strainer in my brew pot to contain my pellet hops. I end up with what seems like a basketball size ball of gunk. I want to keep that out of my plate chiller. I was thinking about throwing the hops into the wort without the bag. At the end of the boil, I can put the paint strainer in the brew pot, and pump the wort through it for five or ten minutes. Will this gunk up my pump? I would think the hops would be pretty diluted as long as I keep the wort moving. Has anyone else tried it, and how did it work for you? I'm always nervous about screwing up 10 gallons of beer.

 

[Wolfbrau]

Once upon a time, I used a Shirron to cool my wort. I had all sorts of problems with pellet hops. I used nylong bags PLUS a false bottom PLUS a bazooka screen PLUS a hopback and still ended up with **** in the fermentor. Pump would strain trying to move a trickle through the plate chiller. No problems at all with whole leaf.

I have since switched back to my old immersion chiller with a pre-chiller. I manually stir to get a strong whirlpool, wait 15 minutes for the hops to steep then just open up the valve with bazooka screen. I have it angled at 90 degrees to avoid picking up the central cone. Pours into the fermentor as fast as the ball valve will allow it plus no need to use a pump.

Note that there are murmurs of info coming from UC Davis that leaving hop debris and hot break behind is not as big a deal as people have traditionally thought. I have a hard time swallowing that, but hey, it could be true.

I can't tell you what to do, but that's my experience.

 

[MX1]

This topic is right on time, as I need to move from pellet to whole hops because of my plate chiller. Think the end state will be a domed false bottom off set because I am set up for whirlpool but I will have to start with my leaf hops in a bag for the first few brews.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[RonPopeil]

My main reason for filtration is to keep gunk out of my kegs. Cleaning kegs and the kegerator is one of my least favorite chores. The less time I spend troubleshooting a fridge the more time I spend drinking homebrew.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I always use a paint strainer in my brew pot to contain my pellet hops. I end up with what seems like a basketball size ball of gunk. I want to keep that out of my plate chiller. I was thinking about throwing the hops into the wort without the bag. At the end of the boil, I can put the paint strainer in the brew pot, and pump the wort through it for five or ten minutes. Will this gunk up my pump? I would think the hops would be pretty diluted as long as I keep the wort moving. Has anyone else tried it, and how did it work for you? I'm always nervous about screwing up 10 gallons of beer.

I routinely pump my hot wort with hop pellets through my chugger pump to sanitize the pump and create a whirlpool around the immersion chiller. You should have no problems recirculating through your strainer. Whole leaf hops, OTOH, will plug it up pronto. I use my hop spider for leaf.

 

[noemptykegs]

We'll, I tried it yesterday. I would not recommend it. After the boil, I put a paint strainer in the pot, and turned on the pump to recirculate into the strainer. For some reason, the hops completely clogged the strainer. I ended up with a giant balloon of hot wort. It got a lot of the hops out, but was not worth the mess and extra work. I think I'll go back to using the strainer for the whole boil, and adding my hops to it.