Hops question

[Phoghouse]

Do most of you filter out your hops before you go to the fermentor or leave them in?

 

[Jsmith82]

I generally leave everything in minus when you're no longer pouring beer from the pot to the bucket and instead pouring hop sludge from the bottom of the boil. It settles over time anyhow so it doesn't bother anything for me; filtering has really shown no benefits to my beer, just makes me look clumsy when the funnel clogs and I get wort all over the place ..

-> Howdy Neighbor!

 

[DregAddict]

No filtering here. I just give everything enough time to settle, and I rack carefully.

 

[scottyg354]

ugghh. Clogging funnels, lol.

 

[frailn]

I'm new to homebrewing this year, with 12 brews under my belt. The first 10 brews, I just dump trub, hops, all in the fermenter and rack to the bottling bucket carefully. But my 10th brew ended up with a few tiny hop leaves in a few bottles. I didn't like it.

So, now I put a mesh bag in my fermentation bucket and dump the wort into that. The mesh bag catches all the hop mess left over from the boil.

Planning to build a hop-spider soon.

 

[NigeltheBold]

I pour through a large strainer to keep the hops from entering the fermenter. I don't want to risk getting any extra hop flavor or bitterness in the beer. Not sure if that would actually happen, but I strain the hops out anyway if I can.

 

[ajf]

I have a false bottom in my kettle, use whole hops, and a CFC.
The bed of hops on top of the false bottom acts as a wonderful filter. It removes most of the hot break, and all of the hops. It doesn't work worth a damn if you use pellet hops, or if you forget to put the false bottom in the kettle before adding the hops.

-a.

 

[msa8967]

If you are fermenting in buckets you can buy 5 gallon paint straining bags (3 for $5 at Menards, Lowes...) I use these to catch much of the hop pieces but then you have to hold the bag above the bucket to allow the extra wort to drain out once you are done with your transfer. You can squeeze the bag assuming your hands are clean and well sanitized to speed up the process. Be sure that the bags are sanitized.

Another idea would be to buy steel splatter screens (that prevent grease from jumping out of a hot pan) and slowly pour youy wort through these.

Lately I have just been letting everything go into the bucket and having extra trub at the end unless I have a very light color beer.

 

[ultravista]

I mash in a bag, a large voile bag about the size of a large pillow case. It keeps the wort super clean. I use a similar process for the hops but with a much smaller bag.

 

[mojo_wire]

I don't do anything to filter pellet hops, they break down into the boil.

For whole hops, I put a paint straining bag in the boil and drop the hops in there, then stir frequently to make sure the wort circulates through well.

 

[TopherM]

I don't want to risk getting any extra hop flavor or bitterness in the beer.

Pretty much all of the alpha acids in the hops are extracted when you boil them, especially in pellets, so all you are really dealing with is green trub. If you don't want excessive sediment in your bottles/keg, you do want to filter this stuff out somewhere along the line. I find it easier to do on brew day, when you don't have to worry about oxidation, but I also find it effective to secure a 1 gallon paint strainer bag to the beer side of the racking cane when I rack to my bottling bucket. Either way works.

 

[D_Struct]

I strain mine out as I pour to the fermenter about 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I just dump straight in and I pay close attention when I rack to keg.