New Hopping method did not go as planned

[jritchie111]

I had been having issues with my beer seeming to sweet in my opinion. I spoke to a local craft brewer and he asked how I was adding my hops. I had been using muslin bags and only simmer boiling. He suggested I add the hops straight to the batch not in a bag and get a good boil going. So I brewed a batch of NB tongue splitter tonight. All went well until I had to transfer to fermentor. I had purchased 100micron paint strainer for 5gal buckets and added an edge pickup tube to my 10 gal pot ( doing 5 gal extract). Before I opened the valve I stirred the wort to get a tornado effect hoping to bring all the hop residue to the center.
However, as soon as I opened the valve I could see hop residue in the wort. My filter quickly clogged and took some time and work to get the wort into the fermentor. Lots of spooning out hop residue and dumping wort from the filter back into the pot. Any idea on how to improve this for my next batch which I might do tomorrow. Any suggestions would help.
I was considering removing the pick up tube to allow for space below the valve to gather the residue. Thanks

 

[H-ost]

You can use a bazooka screen, DIY SS braid, or even a steel scrubby pad shoved against the end of your pick up tube. If you go with a scrubby pad then make sure that it is fully Stainless Steel.

 

[amandabab]

Don't use the filter/strainer. Just let it settle out in the fermentor.

 

[naiek]

It'll fall out in the trub in primary and you can rack off of it when bottling, no biggie. I just toss the hops in, no bag and usually auto-siphon A LOT of sediment into primary. Still get crystal clear beer in the end

 

[Squirrels]

If you search the forum for hop taco, you will seek what you need. The hop taco is similar to the hop stopper. This is all assuming you are using a pickup tube.

 

[oakbarn]

We boil in bag for full 60 minutes on most of our brews. We do not have the problem of too sweet. You could just add more hops or a heavier AAU as the bittering hop generally do not matter. We have made beers using partial ounces left over from previous brews and just got the HBU's correct. We do use the proper hops and fresh (pellet or whole leaf) for flavor and aroma, but bittering hops are not as defined in the final product.

 

[oakbarn]

There is also a filter tube from Brewers Hardware that works very well.

 

[Yooper]

If you don't like hop debris in your fermenter, and it doesn't clog up your pickup tube, and you're using buckets, you can sanitize the paint strainer bag and line the inside of your bucket with it. Transfer the wort with the ball valve, and then when it's done, lift out the paint strainer. Much of the hops debris will be in that bag.

I normally don't bother, but with my newer system leaf hops clog my pump. So for them, I use a "hops spider". It's important if you use a bag or something that the hops are very loose in the bag, so that the wort is boiling hard and the wort can permeate all the hops.

 

[dcott]

One thought on this: If your beer is seeming too sweet, have you looked at the fermentation side of things?

The following can help produce a drier beer:
*Try using more attenuative yeasts
*Try using a bigger starter (or use a starter in the first place) if using liquid yeast to make sure they are healthy and viable for fermentation
*If you do AG, ferment at a lower temp so you have a more fermentable wort
*As counterintuitive as it may seem, add a small amount of sugar of some sort to your grain bill (it's almost purely fermentable, so it ends up producing a drier beer, depending on the percentage of your fermentables)

 

[jritchie111]

I have been hitting my numbers so I do not think it is part of fermentation

 

[bob1006]

You can buy a SS strainer from a home goods store, siphon through that. Mine has a long handle so it spans the fermenter. It also aerates it at the same time.

I pitch the hops directly in the boil. The screen catches almost all of them. The rest settle in fermentation.

I found I end up using less saving some money. Zip lock bag in freezer, use them on the next batch.

 

[DroolingNeoBrewery]

If you're only simmering you're not going to get very much of the alpha acids out of the hops just the more volatile flavor and aroma oils. You need a full rolling boil for that. So you probably wont be hitting your IBUs from that alone.

You can also sanitize the hop sack and put it over the pickup of your auto siphon, or stretch it over the opening to your fermentor (or funnel if your using a carboy). A sanitized strainer works to. But I have never had an issue with using hop sacks. Make sure you are leaving enough room for the pellets to expand, if you tie it so the hops are in a tight little ball they can't expand and let wort flow around them.

Don't reuse your hops, they don't have unlimited alpha acids....