DuPuma
Well-Known Member
Yesterday my brother and I made the biggest, hoppiest beer I've ever made. To commemorate our graduating from college and grad school, we made an IIPA with 11 OZ of hops, 8 of which were whole leaf. Lots of late hop additions, etc., made it one hell of a beer. OG: 1.085, IBU well over 120. It's beautiful, and smells wonderful, but we ran into one huge problem yesterday.
Because we added 7 oz of whole leaf hops in the last 20 minutes, there was simply a TON of hops in my kettle. The spoon could almost stand straight up, and the whirlpool was simply ineffective. We started with 7.25 gallons pre-boil, and ended up with just over 4 in the primary. We lost probably 1.5 gallons to absorption in the hops. Simply put, it was WAY too much hops for my meager 36 qt. brew-kettle. Here's my question:
When making a beer with massive late hop additions, how do you separate the wort from the hops and get the wort in the fermenter?
Our solution was to use a nylon bag as a filter around the auto-siphon. But this led to a LOT of cold break/trub in the primary. Is this the best we could have done?
(Note: This was, by far, the most expensive beer I've made. The massive amounts of hops and malt (10 lb of DME) for a projected 5.5 gallon batch came out to about $80 worth of ingredients. This is our graduation beer, and I won't be making one like it again anytime soon. Given the cost, I was quite dismayed to lose over a gallon to absorption. Nevertheless, it looks like it's going to be one hell of a beer. Any advice to my above question would be greatly appreciated.)
Because we added 7 oz of whole leaf hops in the last 20 minutes, there was simply a TON of hops in my kettle. The spoon could almost stand straight up, and the whirlpool was simply ineffective. We started with 7.25 gallons pre-boil, and ended up with just over 4 in the primary. We lost probably 1.5 gallons to absorption in the hops. Simply put, it was WAY too much hops for my meager 36 qt. brew-kettle. Here's my question:
When making a beer with massive late hop additions, how do you separate the wort from the hops and get the wort in the fermenter?
Our solution was to use a nylon bag as a filter around the auto-siphon. But this led to a LOT of cold break/trub in the primary. Is this the best we could have done?
(Note: This was, by far, the most expensive beer I've made. The massive amounts of hops and malt (10 lb of DME) for a projected 5.5 gallon batch came out to about $80 worth of ingredients. This is our graduation beer, and I won't be making one like it again anytime soon. Given the cost, I was quite dismayed to lose over a gallon to absorption. Nevertheless, it looks like it's going to be one hell of a beer. Any advice to my above question would be greatly appreciated.)