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AnOldUR

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Tossing loose hops in the kettle has been working fine for me, but I had a little time on my hands this morning and came up with an idea. I whirlpool after chilling, but get mixed results. Sometimes there's a nice cone, other times, not so much. When the cone is poor or starts to break down at the end of draining, hop and break material drifts toward the valve. I had this piece of perforated stainless and am hoping that it will create a kind of dam. The theory is that at the start of run off most of the hop and break will have settled and the wort will come over top of the filter. After that, the screen will block some of the solids from getting into the fermenter.

Hoping to get the chance to try it out tomorrow.

hop strainer 1.jpg


hop strainer 2.jpg
 
I was hoping it would work for both pellet and leaf. The holes are about 1/32" diameter.






edit:
The good news is that it's only held in by the spring loaded clip. If it clogs, it won't be till the end and it will be easy to pop off.
 
I was hoping it would work for both pellet and leaf. The holes are about 1/32" diameter.



edit:
The good news is that it's only held in by the spring loaded clip. If it clogs, it won't be till the end and it will be easy to pop off.

I hope it works for both! The only point of reference I have is my bazooka tube. It works great for leaf hops, but pellet hops clog the son of a gun something fierce.

Still, since it's a side pick up, maybe if you whirlpool and the pellets go mostly in the middle, the leaf hops would filter out the pellets and cold break?
 
Never been a fan of the dip tube. Tried but didn't like. I let my wort sit for a while in the kettle after chilling and whirlpooling so that most everything drops. My experience with a dip tube was that if whirlpooling didn't produce a good solid cone, drawing from that close to the bottom just sucked up all the solids that I'd hoped to avoid by waiting.

There are plenty of brewers that say, "just dump it all in." I'm not one of them. Just for giggles, I once took that gallon plus of hop and break slug (that I normally toss out) and fermented it in a small jug. Sure, all that stuff dropped to the bottom with the yeast at the end of fermentation, but the beer on top was not very good. Even though it's a small percentage of the whole batch, I don't want that in my beer.
 
Never been a fan of the dip tube. Tried but didn't like. I let my wort sit for a while in the kettle after chilling and whirlpooling so that most everything drops. My experience with a dip tube was that if whirlpooling didn't produce a good solid cone, drawing from that close to the bottom just sucked up all the solids that I'd hoped to avoid by waiting.

There are plenty of brewers that say, "just dump it all in." I'm not one of them. Just for giggles, I once took that gallon plus of hop and break slug (that I normally toss out) and fermented it in a small jug. Sure, all that stuff dropped to the bottom with the yeast at the end of fermentation, but the beer on top was not very good. Even though it's a small percentage of the whole batch, I don't want that in my beer.

That makes sense. I have a diptube, but since it's in a keg and it's very near the side just below the ballvalve, it doesn't sit all the way at the bottom like the diptubes in the middle do. I guess I don't really try to not get trub in the fermenter, but there is a lot of stuff that stays in the middle, on the bottom, especially hops debris (pellet hops) and hot break material.
 
I have a diptube, but since it's in a keg and it's very near the side just below the ballvalve, it doesn't sit all the way at the bottom like the diptubes in the middle do.
There is a definite advange to the conical bottom of a keggle over a flat bottom pot like mine. Between gravity and whirlpooling you have a lot better chance of avoiding trub with a diptube mounted on the side. Have you ever measured the volume left behind?
 
There is a definite advange to the conical bottom of a keggle over a flat bottom pot like mine. Between gravity and whirlpooling you have a lot better chance of avoiding trub with a diptube mounted on the side. Have you ever measured the volume left behind?

I think I did a while back- and it like something like 1.5 quarts.

When I use the bazooka tube (whole hops), it's about the same amount but it's across the bottom (again, because of the concave bottom, it's not really at the bottom) and it was a bit more.
 
Tossing loose hops in the kettle has been working fine for me, but I had a little time on my hands this morning and came up with an idea. I whirlpool after chilling, but get mixed results. Sometimes there's a nice cone, other times, not so much. When the cone is poor or starts to break down at the end of draining, hop and break material drifts toward the valve. I had this piece of perforated stainless and am hoping that it will create a kind of dam. The theory is that at the start of run off most of the hop and break will have settled and the wort will come over top of the filter. After that, the screen will block some of the solids from getting into the fermenter.

Hoping to get the chance to try it out tomorrow.

Ingenious solution. I hope it works for you. I built a similar rig, but more cumbersome, that was not much help for me. I gave up. Now, I just dump it all in, suck it all out into a conical at 36* f overnight and flush the sludge through the dump valve. Still not as effective as I would like, but the best I can do so far. Wish we could all have centrifuges. Again, very nice build.
 
Well, the results were mixed, but any problems may have been self imposed. The beer I brewed had a lot of rye, but was not overly hopped. For some reason there was a lot more break material than I expected even though I have brewed a fair amount of rye beers. The boil looked like egg drop soup. The hop dam worked well at keeping the wort clear until it reached the top of the perforated plate. At that point the gumminess clogging the holes slowed the flow considerably. It did drain and I got my expected volume to my fermenters, so overall I'm happy. It was almost funny. The run off from the mash was fine, but I had to wait patiently for the kettle to finish draining.

I'm still curious how it will work on a hoppy IPA with 2-row as the bulk of the grist?

hop strainer 3.jpg
 
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