Roadie
Well-Known Member
I have a large hop spider in my BK that we've used for several batches without issue. I love not having to worry about hop debris in the filter/chiller now as our filter used to clog all the time before the hop spider.
Having said that however, we brewed an IPA yesterday where we added 9 oz of hops late (from 5 minutes to whirlpool) in a 5 gallon batch and when we pulled the hop spider for cleaning a lot of these late addition pellets were still intact and had never dissolved. We whirlpooled for 20 minutes starting at 180 F. using a chugger pump connected to the tangential inlet of the BK but it appears that not much force is applied this way as the hops are just resting in the center of the kettle inside the hop spider.
As we have never had such a large addition so late is what we experienced normal? Do the pellets need to dissolve to get the proper hop utilization? Should we have whirlpooled longer or started at a higher temp?
Having said that however, we brewed an IPA yesterday where we added 9 oz of hops late (from 5 minutes to whirlpool) in a 5 gallon batch and when we pulled the hop spider for cleaning a lot of these late addition pellets were still intact and had never dissolved. We whirlpooled for 20 minutes starting at 180 F. using a chugger pump connected to the tangential inlet of the BK but it appears that not much force is applied this way as the hops are just resting in the center of the kettle inside the hop spider.
As we have never had such a large addition so late is what we experienced normal? Do the pellets need to dissolve to get the proper hop utilization? Should we have whirlpooled longer or started at a higher temp?