Home made Hop Stopper- critique?

[kshuler]

Hi-

I am attempting to build a home made hop stopper, and was wondering if anyone had any pointers. I am trying to keep the internal diameter of al lines feeding into my pump at 1/2" or larger, so buying a hopstopper (which I would be TOTALLY worth it to me if it had a 1/2" internal diameter) was out. As such, I need to build one. I have read of some people having problems with the very fine mesh, and some people thought 30x30 was too coarse, so I am using 35x35 mesh and 5/8 inch OD copper tubing. I also want to minimize any clogging issues as much as possible, and think I can make it less likely by bending the copper into a spiral pattern and cutting small grooves on the underside of the copper spiral. The more surface area of inlets the lower pressure on each one, and I think the less chance of getting clogged.

Here is an image of what i am proposing. I have a few questions, though.

1. Should I let the distal end of the tube be open? I am worried I might lose suction sooner if I do that.

2. How hard is it to bend this stuff? The inner part of the spiral will need to be bent into a pretty tight radius of curvature

3. Do I have to leave space off the bottom between my copper spiral and the bottom of the stainless kettle? If I rest it right on the bottom will it cause scorching issues during the boil? What about the steel mesh-- if it touches the bottom of the kettle will it cause scorching of the wort?

4. For anybody who has built one of these before- are there any design flaws that i am not considering?

5. Even though the 35x35 mess seems pretty stiff, do I need to tent it up like a pyramid in order to avoid clogging?


Thanks for any help!

Klaus

 

[AiredAle]

This is what I have done, and what it looks like. See the diagram. By the way your silicon chip based drawing skills are awesome compared to mine.

1. I bought 10” round screens from McMaster Carr, can’t remember the mesh size, but pretty small.

2. I stitched the edges or the two circles together except for an opening about an inch long. In that opening I inserted a 3/8” copper tubing bent to hold the screens apart, and to reach to near the kettle bottom. This is a siphon in effect.

3. I clamped the screen with a stainless hose clamp.

4. I cut an X in the top of the screen big enough for a short piece (1”) of ½” copper water pipe and clamped that to the screen using the flaps of the cut X, and hose clamped that too.

5. I have a ½” stainless coupling welded into my keggle, and on the inside I installed an adaptor from pipe thead to 3/8” compression fitting. The end of the copper tube in the hop screen goes into the compression fitting, which is tightened up judiciously to seal it so the siphon will work on draining.

6. The clean out was added because when I use hop pellets I get some fine powder through the screen which was hard to clean out. On reflection, I would put the clean out on the edge of the screen about 90 degrees away from the siphon tube.



To answer your questions from my experience:

Don’t slot the tubing, don’t make a spiral, the flow I get is plenty fast enough to keep up with my CFC chiller. The tubing is difficult to bend to a tight radius, kinks are annoyingly common.

I tweaked my tubing (go ahead, insert joke here) to keep the screen and tube assembly near but off the bottom of the kettle since scorching could be an issue if you use a gas burner to heat your kettle. I do get build up of sputz under the screen on the kettle bottom, but so far no scorch.

I see no design flaws, but I would recommend a clean out, and a simple bent tube, not a slotted spiral. I don’t think it’s needed, since the screen is the filter not the tube, and the cross sectional area of the tube will be the flow limiter anyway.

View attachment Hop screen drawing.pdf

 

[Bobby_M]

The idea is to keep the two screen surfaces apart because they'll want to collapse on each other as it gets more and more clogged. For that purpose, the coil of copper will work well. The slots at the bottom should work well to keep it from attempting to draw from one area too much. I'd close off the end because the slots would be lower than the top of the opening. I would leave the mesh flat, but try to keep it from laying tight on the bottom of the pot.

 

[AiredAle]

I took a look at my hop screen when I got home today, and realized I neglected to mention the copper wire spreader I made to keep the screen surfaces apart. The spreader is two 4" diameter circles of wire (probably 1/8" diameter solid ground wire) separated by three 1.5" wire struts, all soldered together. About the size of a tuna fish can all told. This was slid into the half sown up screens then the rest of the edges were stitched together with stainless wire.

 

[wheelerc6]

Mine is very simple. I used the 30x30 with a simple copper dip tube running through one of the corners of the square I made. I think the mesh came as 20'' long. I simply folded the SS mesh in half and then crimped the other ends leaving a small opening for the dip tube to fit through. I was going to thread it with the SS wire but that was way too hard and the crimp never came apart. I have never had a problem with the mesh clogging when making my IPA....about 8oz of pellet hops. It does look really funky when it is full of hops. I always thought when the hops layer formed on the mesh it created a filter bed.

Here is a picture...

 

[oldschool]

Where do you get this SS mesh? Will it really filter out pellet hops?

 

[wheelerc6]

Where do you get this SS mesh? Will it really filter out pellet hops?

McMaster-Carr

Here is the link..

http://www.mcmaster.com/#9230t625/=6de2wq

if that doesn't work the part # is 9230T625. It is actually 12x24 30x30 mesh size. I ordered 2 to so I would have a back up.

 

[sirsloop]

I've seen so many designed and heard about so many failures...LOL!! I decided to try out a bag... but it ended up touching the bottom and melting! LOL!

 

[wheelerc6]

I've seen so many designed and heard about so many failures...LOL!! I decided to try out a bag... but it ended up touching the bottom and melting! LOL!

Did you try a nylon bag?

Would use SS instead of nylon. Really easy and doesn't cost that much.

 

[sirsloop]

yes, nylon bag melted.

 

[kshuler]

Wow- Bending 5/8" copper tubing is a nightmare! And stitching up steel mesh with steel wire isn't much fun either! About 1/3 way done so far with the project. I am taking people's advice and not bothering to make a coil, just a straight piece of copper tubing bent a bit so it will get closer to the bottom of the kettle. Still think I will slot the bottom, though, and probably close off the open end. That way I might collect a pint or 2 more wort.

Thanks for the advice! Anybody have any problems with wort scorching if the DIY hop stopper sits on the bottom during the boil? I also have a false bottom for the kettle-- I assume I don't need to use this with the hopstopper? Would it hurt if I did?

Klaus