Your preferred method for separating boiled hops from fermenter?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

nebben

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2008
Messages
1,143
Reaction score
16
Location
Now legal in Utah
Up to this point, I've had a laid back attitude about the hops and trub that wind up in my fermenter. There is a lot of room in that carboy (and now that Blichmann :)) for the extra "waste" products. Besides, it is far easier to scoop up and pour from the boil kettle into the fermenter to aerate without worrying about separating trub and hops from it all.

But...

...I just brewed up my first barleywine this weekend and pitched it onto an existing healthy yeast cake. Now, my carboy is already full of .5G trub/yeast from the last batch, and I've introduced all this new trub and 7.5oz of wort soaked hop pellets fragments. The ensuing mega-fermentation required a blowoff tube within 12 hours, and even that was barely keeping up with the yeast/wort/hop volcano.

It seems like some of this mess could be avoided if I had less hops leftover from the boil hovering on the top of the krausen that is now blasting out at high speed into my 1L flask...even that has to be emptied ever few hours now because of all the material being ejected!

What methods do you guys prefer to keep hops and trub from the boil out of the fermenter? Muslin bags in the boil? Nylon paint bags in the boil? Some elaborate and expensive Blichmann device? Some easy/cheap thing from IKEA that you repurposed as a hop ball or something?
 
Nebben
This is largely determined by your equipment. I use an IC and whirlpool but I am not patient enough to wait for the swirl to settle after I pull my IC, if I pull it before draining at all. If I have leaf hops, I have to use a nylon bag for them, as they would clog my plumbing. If you're not using a pump, and using leaf, you could make or buy a screen for the pickup tube.
 
I just use a hop-catcher in the BK. Any little guys that make it through there are welcome to party with the yeast in primary.

I use whole hops on a very regular basis, so I cannot count on them whirlpooling or somehow "missing" my pick-up tube.

Works well though as the trub is limited to break material and I leave as much behind int he BK as possible. Trub/hop material in the fermenter is nearly non-existent.
 
If you use a Blichmann Boil kettle the Blichmann Hop blocker should work very well. It just doesn't work on a Keggle like I have. You need to have a flat bottom near the output.
 
I just remove my hop bag. +1 to whoever said to whirlpool and patient. Then all you have to do is siphon off the top of the trub.
 
Back
Top