New set up... one Snafu

[max_h]

Just got into AG after brewing partial mash for a long time. It took me a while to get all the new equip but I finally got my keggle fitted out, made an immersion chiller and a cooler mash tun. It all worked really well for my first AG batch with one snafu: with a 5 gallon batch my immersion chiller hangs on top of my dip tube so is only about half submerged. I probably could have cooled my wort much faster without this issue. I figure I need to either modify the dip tube, if that is even possible, or just brew 10 gallon batches. Anyone here ever done a dip tube mod because of this issue or dealt with it otherwise?
The dip tube stumped me for a while. I am using whole hops and I was scared to just throw them in for fear of clogging the tube so I used muslin bag for my hop additions. Not sure if this was necessary and the hop bags soaked up a ton of wort that never made it into the fermenter.
Any comments or suggestions greatly appreciated!
Cheers,
Max

 

[johngaltsmotor]

I've manhandled my dip tube to allow my IC to sit as deep as possible.
Unless you have a large diameter (1") dip tube you'll likely be happiest with a hop spider using whole leaf hops. Once they swell up they can plug a 3/4" tube even with smooth bends. (and it sux trying to clear the tube with hot wort without adding germs )