Most expensive 2 gallons I've ever had! (+100 for hop bags)

[eulipion2]

So, today was brew day. BrewPastor's Dark Night of the Soul. Everything was pretty much okay until I got to racking to the fermenter. Turns out, 4 oz. of whole hops clogs just about any siphoning device on the market. The other two ounces were pellets, in case you're looking at the recipe. I didn't have a hop bag, so the auto-siphon clogged three times, a racking cane with screen clogged twice, so I decided as a complete last ditch to just try and pour the damn beer. After most of the beer found its way to the ground I gave up.

I started with almost 9 gallons of wort. Boiled it (a little too far ) down to 4.5, and ended up with 2-3 gallons. I'm a bit pissed, as I wasted probably around $50, I don't have a homebrew supply store within 50 miles of me to try a do-over, and I don't want to ship 24 pounds of grain.

The moral of the story: If you're using whole hops, USE A FRIGGIN' HOP BAG!

 

[rnrchemnerd]

Hmmmmmnnnnnn...........If you are racking your cooled wort into the primary, I'd almost dare say that your pellet hops were/are the problem. I've been using whole hops for about a year now, and I've only had that problem once (it was a very crushed up bag of sterling). My autosiphon used to get stuck all the time back when I was using pellets though (especially when bottling.) You could try sanitizing a strainer and fishing out a majority of the hop flowers next time.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[JoMarky]

What were you racking too? A carboy or bucket? If a bucket, it must have been pretty hard to miss with that much If a carboy, either a hops bag or an extra large funnel would solve the problem. I use both, hops bag and funnel, but I didn't have a problem my first few batches when i boiled my hop pellets directly in the wort

 

[eulipion2]

Nope, it was definitely the whole hops. They lodged themselves up in the autosiphon valve and gave me the finger. Somehow a whole flower got up there! Also, racking to a carboy. If only I had a bucket! I've got kitchen strainers all over the place.

I brewed Rhoobarb's Damned Kids Oatmeal Stout last week with pellets and had no problem. I used, I believe 2 ounces total in that brew. This one had 6, of which four were whole hops, two were pellets.

Oh well, lick my wounds and try again. Anyone got 20 pounds of base malt they'd be willing to send me?

 

[ISUBrew79]

I purchased one of these EZ-Strainers from US Plastics.

EZ-Strainers™ - US Plastic Corporation

They do a pretty good job of filtering off most of the hops and break material. I tend to whirlpool the wort and use a pitcher to transfer the wort from the kettle through the sanitized strainer into a sanitized bucket. Once I get most of the clear wort poured through, I then pour the rest of the wort containing the hops and trub into the strainer. I drop my aeration stone into the wort underneath and begin aerating the wort while the rest of the wort drains down into the bucket. It can take a while for the remaining wort to drain through, but this can be expedited by gently stirring the trub-laden wort with a sanitized spoon. I cover the strainer with the sanitized bucket lid while aerating. After 20-30 minutes, most of the wort has drained through and I can pitch my yeast.

These strainers also come in other mesh sizes too. ElevatedThreat on YouTube told me where to buy these strainers. You can see him using one in this video, about halfway through:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taksqBp90jg]YouTube - Brewing 41 North, Pale Ale (Part 8 of 9)[/ame]

 

[conpewter]

Dude... yes hop bag!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/lil-sparky-tha-man-40738/

One of the best things I've added to my setup, I love that I hardly loose any wort to hops now since it drains out as I drain the kettle.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Build yourself one of these:

PVC coupler, drilled with 3/8" holes, three 10" carriage bolts, washers and nuts. The paint strainer bag is held on with a big worm clamp. The 1gal bag is sufficient for pellets, for whole leaf switch out to a 5gal bag. All the parts to build this are $15 at Lowe's or Home Depot or whatever hardware store you might have nearby. The paint strainer bags are by the paint guns.

Edit: got beaten to the punch while I was uploading the photo.

 

[malkore]

whole hops plugged the drain on my kettle the one time I used them. I need to make a hop-sock.

 

[BrewBrain]

Bucket > Carboy IMO.

1) Don't have to see fermentation
2) Easier to haul around
3) Dump full contents of kettle through three kitchen strainer system. Gives great aeraton.

No muss, no fuss.

 

[eulipion2]

Saccharomyces, I'm diggin' the rig. Might have to whip one of those up. Then I have to find 20 lb. of base malt and 6 oz. of Columbus hops for cheap. At least the hop strainer will be cheap.

Thanks for all the suggestions. This problem will definitely not repeat itself!

 

[eulipion2]

One quick question: the paint strainer bag, is that nylon? If so, can nylon hold up to boiling temps? I have a nylon straining bag I could use, but don't want the thing to melt in my wort, or leech out chemicals.

Thanks

 

[MNBugeater]

The paint strainer bags usually come in a package of 2 and might be $3-4. But their big advantage is that they are long and will sit at or near the bottom of your kettle and will allow the most freedom for those pellets to move about the boil.

Regarding getting more grain and your concern with shipping. Northern Brewer in MN has a flat $7.99 shipping. Great deal, ship all the grain you want and its only $7.99. Thats probably less than it would cost you to drive the 100 (round trip) to get to your nearest LHBS.

 

[Ecnerwal]

Nylon is fine to boil, though I personally suggest washing it with dish soap, rinsing well, and boiling it a few times in plain water before first use in beer.

If you have a bottling bucket, you could use that to pour into on the way to the carboy.

I used a plastic potscrubber as the hops filter on my racking setup for a while - worked pretty well. I was using a plain siphon, though, so anything that got through just went all the way through without clogging.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

A big whirlpool and 20 minutes of patience would solve all your problems.

 

[hnefatafl]

I only ever use whole hops, and I haven't had it stuck since I started using the scrubber; First I whirlpool the heck out of the cooled wort, and let it sit 20 minutes or so. Then I've got a pure copper scrub pad fastened around the end of my auto-siphon using an elastic band, and suck it all out into the carboy.

Works great so far.

 

[Hokie]

The paint strainer bags usually come in a package of 2 and might be $3-4. But their big advantage is that they are long and will sit at or near the bottom of your kettle and will allow the most freedom for those pellets to move about the boil.

I just used a nylon paint strainer for the first time and my main issue is that it did not in fact sit near the bottom... the boiling wort kept it floating on top and raising a lot of the hops above the wort. My main concern is hop utilization.
Are you supposed to keep a weight in there or something?

 

[conpewter]

Sometimes I've weighted the hop bag, othertimes not. I'm not positive yet which one is better. I try to stir around the hop sack during the boil.

I've wondered though if it would be better to make the top ring of the hop sack out of a 5 gallon bucket, weigh the bottom down with a stainless steel ring of some sort (same diameter as 5 gallon bucket) and in a way make a lot more area for the wort to boil with the hops, then it will still easily strain out.

I've also debated using the frying strainer I got with my turkey fryer and put the nylon paint strainer bag around the outside of that so that I get a larger surface area again for the hops to move around.

 

[Chupacabras]

I had the same problem, only it was siphoning a dry hopped beer. 2 oz of whole hops in 5 gallons. My suggestion? Ram the sediment tip onto the siphon as hard as you can, make sure there's very little room for stuff to get in... the hops then acted like a natural filter. Worked like a charm.