here’s an ebay link on this:
I think I bought mine on amazon, but does anyone see a reason not to use one of these when lautering to the boil pot? They come in different micron sizes.
Don’t see why not. I’ve used 5 gallon paint strainer bags for years. Same principle.
Except there isn’t really any need to filter on the way to the boil kettle and it adds another failure point to the system.
Yeah, I don’t strain on the way to the kettle either. But I remember straining through fine mesh into the kettle when I started out in AG, mostly out of being OCD about fine husk getting into the kettle. Obviously a good vorlauf takes care of that.
EDIT - I use paint strainer bags mostly for hops, to contain them in the kettle (aka a ‘frugal’ spider) and to contain dry hops.
I simply hook up a high temp hose to the mash/lauter tun valve, vorlauf and drain. The grain bed does all the straining into the boil kettle.
I do run the wort thru a strainer into the fermenter but this is an effort to help aerate after the boil and the wort is cooled. And I do use a paint strainer bag in my home made hop spider to contain the hop trub so I rarely get anything in the brew kettle to fermenter strainer.
+1. No need to filter during lautering. That’s what the grain bed is for. If you vorlauf you should get clear wort. And even if a few chunks of grain get over it won’t really matter (but if you batch sparge with denny’s method and the stainless mesh screen you won’t have any grain get through at all.
What that filter would be nice for is those of us who just dump their kettle into a bucket fermenter. This would probably do a decent job of catching trub and hop schwag without clogging. I might have to look into this.
I dump my kettle into the bucket as well (no valve), and I pour through a funnel with a strainer bag to catch extra hop particles (not caught by the spider) and some of the trub. Definitely catches a fair amount.
I put one of these inside a paint strainer bag, and it certainly catches a lot.
But I don’t use a spider, so an all-pellet hop IPA is still a bit of a challenge for me. I’m thinking a fine filter like this may make life a bit easier. And it will be a heck of a lot easier to clean afterwards.
THIS^^^^^. Not to mention doing unnecessary work…I hate that!
I use a big stainless steel kitchen strainer that I got fairly cheap at an Asian market. That catches most trub from pellets, but I do two pours to help aerate. That on the first pass and this on the second would probably be even better. I would worry that the fine mesh would clog with the initial amount of trub.