New way to control Pellet Hop gunk!

[stonebrewer]

I was thinking about doing a larger one for my 20G tun. Can you take some pix of it outside of the kettle as well? Looks like there is a handle there. Is that for the screen? What is that thing with the holes?

 

[marcb]

Sure, I'll do it tomorrow! It's a fryer/steamer basket that I measured for the inside tolerance and chad made a basket for with a flush bottom. The handle is actually on the strainer basket.

 

[wobdee]

Chad made me this mash basket a few months ago for my 8 gal kettle. Works great for BIAB.

 

[marcb]

More pics of the grain basket.

 

[marcb]

Chad made me this mash basket a few months ago for my 8 gal kettle. Works great for BIAB.

That looks good! I like the BBQ grate idea I drain the grains or even a light sparge. How's your efficiency?

 

[wobdee]

That looks good! I like the BBQ grate idea I drain the grains or even a light sparge. How's your efficiency?

I have been thinking of trying a little sparge but with full volume no sparge BIAB I'm getting 75-85% mash efficiency so it's kind a hard for me to justify another step for a couple more gravity points.

 

[Demus]

I have been thinking of trying a little sparge but with full volume no sparge BIAB I'm getting 75-85% mash efficiency so it's kind a hard for me to justify another step for a couple more gravity points.

How do you calculate your efficiency?

 

[wobdee]

How do you calculate your efficiency?

Calculated by Promash. Usually beers under 1.060 are up around 80% and larger beers are less.

 

[ftlstrings]

Here's a new twist! Chad made me a grain basket for the 15g kettle! Fits like a glove, the pics are a little jacked so I took one with the flash and one w/o. This is a 400 micron basket so should be good to go for mashing in for BiAB and has a recirc line through a bulkhead in the lid.

How's that grain basket working out? I was contemplating this exact thing!

Mike

 

[marcb]

How's that grain basket working out? I was contemplating this exact thing!

Mike

Working great. I haven't used it for all grain yet but in my testing to date looks like it will be perfect. I think the ideal scenario is to have one of these for mashing and a smaller one for hops in the boil as I did a water test with this in at boiling and while it worked there seemed to be considerable force pent up around the strainer basket (the part with the big holes that came with the kettle) that were pushing up. It would probably work fine but I am always paranoid about burps of boiling liquid coming out. So the process would be to mash with the strainer, drain, remove and then put in a smaller basket for hops in the boil. Make sense?

 

[wobdee]

Working great. I haven't used it for all grain yet but in my testing to date looks like it will be perfect. I think the ideal scenario is to have one of these for mashing and a smaller one for hops in the boil as I did a water test with this in at boiling and while it worked there seemed to be considerable force pent up around the strainer basket (the part with the big holes that came with the kettle) that were pushing up. It would probably work fine but I am always paranoid about burps of boiling liquid coming out. So the process would be to mash with the strainer, drain, remove and then put in a smaller basket for hops in the boil. Make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. I tried the same thing and the larger basket in the boil creates an air pocket underneath that will move it around and burp on occasion. I use the large basket strictly for the mash and a smaller hop basket for the boil.

 

[govner1]

Just racked a batch of Burton Ale to a keg for conditioning. I used one of Chad's Better Bottle tubes for dry hopping again (4th time) & again it worked great!!

 

[grathan]

Just racked a batch of Burton Ale to a keg for conditioning. I used one of Chad's Better Bottle tubes for dry hopping again (4th time) & again it worked great!!

Are you using it with the hops loose or inside of the tube?

 

[govner1]

I put the hops in the tube inside my BB. I used hop pellets this time but have used whole leaf too.

 

[marcb]

I finally got around to posting a video showing how easy it is to clean these filters, it's about a minute long. This is after a 90 minute boil on a PTE clone with 4.5lbs of CTZ, Simcoe and Centennial hops.

[ame]http://youtu.be/OF9KlSjpLqQ[/ame]

 

[Carlscan26]

I finally got around to posting a video showing how easy it is to clean these filters, it's about a minute long. This is after a 90 minute boil on a PTE clone with 4.5lbs of CTZ, Simcoe and Centennial hops.

Video Link: http://youtu.be/OF9KlSjpLqQ

I have to say, I was expecting some kind of automated rig coming from you

 

[marcb]

I have to say, I was expecting some kind of automated rig coming from you

Lol, I will have to devise one ; )

 

[grathan]

My water pressure seems similar to yours. I've noticed a big difference if you let the break material dry on for a few minutes. I have been hanging the basket from a chain above the kettle and letting it drip for a few minutes during the hectic tail end of a brew session, but the stuff doesn't come off as easily when I do this. I am gonna go to an overnight soak or perhaps pressure washer routine.

 

[fifthcircle]

I just had a thought...

The back story:
I wasn't thinking, and just threw in the 60min addition of pellet hops without using my hop strainer. Total brain fart, and I instantly thought "oh well, only 2oz total" (pumpkin ale). So... I had a lot of hop material and cold break after boil, and ended up dumping about 1/4gal wort out.

I was draining into a bucket for primary, and in hindsight, I should have just hung the strainer on the bucket, and ran the beer through it. In fact, I think I will go that route from now on, when I am using a bucket, as I do 90% of the time, at least for primary. Then I don't need to even worry about whirlpool. Just chill, and start draining from the ball valve, through the filter hanging on the bucket!

Anyone tried that?

 

[Travestian]

Just chill, and start draining from the ball valve, through the filter hanging on the bucket!

Anyone tried that?

I've actually done that before. I didn't collect a whole lot of hot break material but you will definitely get the hops out. YMMV.

 

[Fishin-Jay]

Anybody using this hop strainer with a Blichman 10 gallon pot? Does the 6x14 standard strainer fit well?
After brewing a Red IPA with whole leaf hops and having my pick up tube clog repeatedly as I drained the wort I am desperate for a better way to keep the hops from clogging the drain!

 

[sweetcell]

I've actually done that before. I didn't collect a whole lot of hot break material but you will definitely get the hops out. YMMV.

i've also used a filter to catch grain debris as i run the mash out of the MLT into the BK. even though i've been recirc'ing for an hour i still get a tablespoon or two of fine grain particles in my runoff.

 

[sweetcell]

Anybody using this hop strainer with a Blichman 10 gallon pot? Does the 6x14 standard strainer fit well?
After brewing a Red IPA with whole leaf hops and having my pick up tube clog repeatedly as I drained the wort I am desperate for a better way to keep the hops from clogging the drain!

i don't know if you'll be able to fit sufficient whole leaf hops in one of these to make an IPA. with my IPA recipes, i would need a bigger sized filter, or a second one.

 

[stonebrewer]

i don't know if you'll be able to fit sufficient whole leaf hops in one of these to make an IPA. with my IPA recipes, i would need a bigger sized filter, or a second one.

+1; I find these filters work great for pellet hops, but remember surface area is critical so larger diameter screens are much better. As far as leaf hops go, I throw them in the boil and let the bazooka keep them out of the carboy. that said, if you add enough leaf, you will clog a bazooka. Recommend you use a mix of pellet and leaf, put the pellet in a hop basket like this one, or go all pellet with one of these.

 

[Fishin-Jay]

+1; I find these filters work great for pellet hops, but remember surface area is critical so larger diameter screens are much better. As far as leaf hops go, I throw them in the boil and let the bazooka keep them out of the carboy. that said, if you add enough leaf, you will clog a bazooka. Recommend you use a mix of pellet and leaf, put the pellet in a hop basket like this one, or go all pellet with one of these.

Good advice, thanks!

 

[ResumeMan]

I made strainer 11" in diameter (sankey keg as BK, aprox. 15" wide ) and I have boil over problems with it.
Strainer is big enough to enable boil in it, but vigorous boil takes place between strainer and keg wall, and this is where the problem comes:
space between basket and keg is pretty limited so boil can easily pour over keg side, especially at the beginning and with large pre-boil volume.

I will have to reduce diameter, perhaps to 4-6" just to increase boil surface.

I'm thinking about going this route. I see here that having an 11" strainer in a keggle is problematic. i couldn't have one that big anyway as the opening in the top is only a bit over 10".

I note that other folks in this thread have discussed trying an 8" filter in a keggle, but i can't find anyone who actually posted results. Anyone try this? Problems/success/etc.? Do folks think that there will sufficiently vigorous boil to drive off DMS?

Also, I know some folks have multiple versions of this thing. For anyone who's used both something in the 8" range and a more typical 6" (in any kettle style), was there a noticeable difference in things like clogging and other performance?

I boil in a keggle made from a pony keg. So it's about 15" wide with a 10" opening, and is around 10" deep. I was thinking of going with a 300-um filter that was 8" diameter by about 8 or 9" deep. This would give me a gap in the opening about 1" on either side, and about 3-4" between the filter and the walls of the keggle, and 1-2" above the bottom.

Based on everyone's experiences with these units, does that seem like a workable design?

 

[FredTheNuke]

I am using Two 6" x 14" 300 mesh filters for my "House" Pilsner which uses 1 pound of Saaz pellets per 15 gallons (18 gallons at beginning of boil). 1 filter works but ends up quite stopped up with the wort level above the boil volume line when recircing while sanitizing the plate chiller with the recirc discharge going into the strainer. 2 keeps things a bit more where I like them. No discernible taste difference yet - will update again in 2 months when the product of 2 filters has had full lagering and carbonating time.

 

[ResumeMan]

So just checking in again with some keggle brewers. From experience, will an 8" diameter filter both (a) provide sufficient boiling/circulation within the filter and (b) not cause any major problems in the portions of the keggle outside the filter? I would probably plan on the 300 micron.

Thanks!

 

[kombat]

Question for those who are using this device or something similar:

I've heard that you should not try to "squeeze" your hop gunk to extract any wort that's been soaked up by the hops, and instead you should just consider that to be lost wort. I have the tall, cylindrical version of this device, and at the end of my boil, immediately after flameout, the first thing I do is lift the hop screen out of the kettle and hold it there for a minute for the wort in the hop gunk to drain out, into the boil kettle. I'll sometimes even give it a little shake to get even more wort out of the hop gunk contained in the hop screen.

Is this a bad practice? What am I risking by doing this? Should I instead just leave the screen in the kettle all through the chilling, and even while racking it out of the kettle into a fermenter?

 

[Travestian]

Question for those who are using this device or something similar:

I've heard that you should not try to "squeeze" your hop gunk to extract any wort that's been soaked up by the hops, and instead you should just consider that to be lost wort. I have the tall, cylindrical version of this device, and at the end of my boil, immediately after flameout, the first thing I do is lift the hop screen out of the kettle and hold it there for a minute for the wort in the hop gunk to drain out, into the boil kettle. I'll sometimes even give it a little shake to get even more wort out of the hop gunk contained in the hop screen.

Is this a bad practice? What am I risking by doing this? Should I instead just leave the screen in the kettle all through the chilling, and even while racking it out of the kettle into a fermenter?

I do the same thing with no issues. I will however put any last few minute hops directly into the boil.