Need ideas for Hop Utilization

[jritchie111]

I have a few batches under my belt and they all seem to be a little on the sweet side. I hit all my gravities and everything else seems to be correct. I was talking to a local craft brewer and he asked how I was adding my hops. I had been using muslin bags and doing a full boil. He suggested letting them swim and make sure I get a rolling boil. This would help release more alpha acids. This makes complete sense to me. However my issue is keep the hops, etc into the fermentor. I was looking at a hop stopper, but I use an immersion chiller and figured there would be interference. I currently only get 90% chiller under the wort due to the small diameter and tall height compared to my 10gal pot. If I add a hop stopper that would raise it more. I would like some suggestions and or ideas on how to handle this.

 

[Seven]

If you use a mesh bag to hold the hops use a medium size bag so they aren't packed too tightly together and stir the hops inside the bag several times during the boil. Otherwise they can act like a sponge inside the bag and fail to release all of their hoppy goodness.

I stopped using hop bags for this exact reason and now just whirlpool at the end of the boil and I don't worry about getting some hop trub in the fermentor.