14 replies to this topic

[Howie]

I'm splitting off from Jimvy's leaf hop thread here rather than hijacking.Seems like most everyone uses pellet hops. I've been using leaf for years - so long that I can hardly even remember ever using pellets. Pellet hops clog my kettle drain tube, and I find that the filtering bed that whole hops provides is a great benefit. For those of you using pellets, what are you doing to deal with all the hop matter at the end of the boil? Filtering somehow? Just let it go into the fermenter?

[ncbeerbrewer]

My brew kettle does not have a ball valve and I do all my transfers with an autosiphon. I whirlpool during the cool down and I get a hop cone to form towards the center of the kettle. I tilt the kettle so that autosiphon picks up from the low point of the kettle and leave pretty much most of the hop sludge to dump. Worked for me for several years now.

[Beejus McReejus]

I use a hop bag for both pellets and whole. The pellets aren't completely contained in the bag, but it does a pretty good job of keeping the bulk of hop junk out of the wort.

[Stout_fan]

I use one of those 5 gal hop bags. Like BJ1833 said above, it contains most of the junk. What does get out of the bag is minimal compared to the hot break.And being the cheap SOB, I just pump it all over to the fermenter via a CFWC and let the yeast sort it out.

[Big Nake]

I do just as ncbeerbrewer does... just throw them in and then let Whirfloc and the chill drop everything to the bottom. Then I rack from brewpot to primary getting maybe 80% ultra-clear wort and then some hop schputz. I have used the mesh bags, but found that they're not worth the trouble... the bag either opens up mid-boil or some stuff leaks out anyway, leaving you with sludge. Mashing on a Christmas beer as I type.

[3rd party JKor]

I throw all my hops right in the boil, then I whirlpool at the end of the boil. The great majority of the hop sludge gets contained there. Some stuff gets into the pick-up tube at the end of the transfer, but nowhere near enough to clog it.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I pour my wort through a 5 gallon paint strainer bag on it's way to the primary bucket. If you do more than 5 gallon batches this isn't really an option as I can barely pour this without assistance as it is.

[passlaku]

I used to stress out about hop sludge but now I just pour it into the primary. I know. I know. I really should not do that but I guess it means that I lose more beer in the transfer from the primary to the keg. According to the Jamil Show, I once heard that it might mean that you get a slightly more bitter beer. When I use a high floc english yeast I get very clear beer.

[HVB]

All my hops get thrown right in. I used to use a hop bags or paint strainer bags but I just noticed a difference. If I have any whole hops I will put a false bottom in and that will help filter the pellets. If it is all pellets I just let them fly. I do whirlpool so most get moved to the center. I pump to my fermenters and what every makes it over becomes yeast food.

[Big Nake]

I used to stress out about hop sludge but now I just pour it into the primary. I know. I know. I really should not do that but I guess it means that I lose more beer in the transfer from the primary to the keg. According to the Jamil Show, I once heard that it might mean that you get a slightly more bitter beer. When I use a high floc english yeast I get very clear beer.

This is not really a huge deal, but if you harvest yeast from that primary, a lot of that harvested volume will be non-yeast, obviously. I am always making 2, 3, 4 batches from the same yeast so I try to keep it as clean as possible. But I don't think having that material in your primary would do any harm to your beautiful beer.

[Howie]

This is not really a huge deal, but if you harvest yeast from that primary, a lot of that harvested volume will be non-yeast, obviously. I am always making 2, 3, 4 batches from the same yeast so I try to keep it as clean as possible.

Yeah, that's one of my concerns.I don't mind using leaf. I rather like them. But pellets would make storage and measuring a LOT easier.

[RommelMagic]

I use a t-shaped bazooka screen in the BK. If I only use whole/leaf hops, I normally don't use a mesh bag however if I use pellets at all, definitely a mesh bag.

[MakeMeHoppy]

I use both the hop bag and the whirlpool autosiphon methods. Some of the hops escape the bag but not a lot. When I autosiphon I sometimes pick up some hop/break material depending on how my wort I want to transfer to the fermenter. It all drops out pretty quickly and I have plenty of headspace in my carboy so it really doesn't matter.

[Jimmy James]

I just throw the pellets into the boil and whirlpool to form a "cone" like nc and others. Haven't had a problem with clogging in the 1/2" ball valve even when some hop material comes through, but usually I sacrifice the last 1/2 gallon of wort so as not to really transfer much break or hop debris. Basically I use this same process whether it's a 5 or 10 gallon batch. Even when I didn't have a whirlpool chiller it was possible to get the same effect by letting the break/hop material settle out for a few minutes after chilling was complete, so the debris would be well below the level of the bulkhead. If you use something like the kettle diverter from B3 you wouldn't have to sacrifice much wort.

[stangbat]

I basically do the same as BJ1833 and Stout_fan. But mainly I swear get pissed off. No matter what I do they seem to cause problems when transferring to the fermenter. If I'm not using any whole hops, I'll just pump into the fermenter and say fark it. But it seems like I usually have to use a combination of whole and pellets. So I have to use my FB, which means that even with hop bags, it gets clogged. F'ing pellet hops. Ask me how I really feel about them.