I use a 5gal paint strainer bag placed just inside the opening of my big mouth bubbler and drain/syphon my wort through the bag, while this is collecting hop gunk I feel this is also aiding in aerating as it moves through the filter dropping to the bottom of the fermentor. After kettle is drained, I wear nitrile gloves that are sanitized I pull the bag out slowly and squeeze till I get every last drop of wort out of the hops. Although I’m getting away from using pellets so I dont have to do that anymore, I find that works well for me at the moment. Cheap and easy
Minimizing pellet sludge and break just makes it easier to take a relatively break and hop debris free crop. The crop shown below was bottom cropped from a primary fermentation vessel before I switched to pellets.
Holy smeg that’s clean.
Mine look nearly that clean with a pumped whirlpool and slow run off. But I did find it satisfying when I would be done racking out of the kettle and find all that break stuck to the cones.
I also always hated the amount of volume lost to the whole hops. A moderate IPA could cost 1/2-3/4 gallons.
The other issue with whole hops is seemingly smaller variety. I know everything in pellets but blends can be found in whole form, but I find many shops favor pellets. I’ve noticed it can go both ways in regards to availability of some of the newer experimental hops.
I’ve never seen whole hops available for NZ or Aussie hop varieties, so that’s the dealbreaker for switching to whole cones for me.
With the massive quantity of hops I use, my main problem with pellets is the amount of hop particulate that stays in suspension after dry hopping. I always get a rough “raw hop” character with a big pellet dry hop. I’ve decided to build a Randall and stuff it with whole hops as a filter while jumping to my serving keg after dry hopping. Since I ferment in a keg, I could just as easily use this as a hopback to filter hops and break prior to fermentation I suppose.
I bought a pound of whole Galaxy a while back, so while rare, those sometimes can be found.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to keep my eye out.
I’ve used whole leaf southern cross as well.
All of my hops go into bags and remain that way until the end of chilling. Once I have the wort <100F, I pluck the bags from the wort, and using a sanitized bare hand, squeeze to get back ~90% of the wort stuck in the hops. I aim to get the majority of the wort but no so much I feel like I’m wringing the hops too much.
I do the same for every batch of beer I brew.
I use this in my BK. I then pump whirlpool and have never had a clog. I just adjust my volumes and leave it in. I used a CFC and all pellets. My last IPA had over a pound of hops and would never go back to free dropping or bagging. Clean up is easy.
to OP, hop rocket?
Are you asking if I know what a hop rocket is or are you trying to figure out what a hop rocket is?
Be cool.
Yeah, pretty unnecessary.
For real. Especially considering you only have 6 posts on this forum.
I apologize. I might have been a little harsh…I’ll edit.
I think he is asking if you have considered a Hop Rocket.
This seems like a great idea. I’ll have to try it.
I had a little something similar after I was done draining the liquid from a steeping grain bag into the brew kettle. I drained as much as I could but then after adding DME to the kettle and after the hot break when I could relax a bit I noticed that the muslin bag I had placed aside had leaked a few extra ounces of goodness into the pan I set it in. I was like “oh wow, there’s body in there!” I was so tempted to add to the boiling wort and probably should have. This was a stout I was brewing so that liquid was full of coffee and chocolate notes.
No prob, added to my morning coffee the next day. Delicious!