So brewed two beers this weekend, a Vanilla Porter expresso on Friday and yesterday a clone of a Lagunita Sumpin Sumpin.
The vanilla porter went well very few problems. But the Lagunita Sumpin Sumpin gave a fit when it was time to transfer to Primary. Obviously there are a bunch of hops in this beer and I did as instructed and added them to the brew at set times. The problem became when I was transferring I use a couple sanitized one gallon paint filters and they were clogging up every minute causing a bit of a mess plus a much slower transfer time. About half done I just pulled the filter and let it go in unfiltered hoping that by time I go to secondary or straight to keg these will all be settled nicely and avoidable when siphoning. My question is could I have put these hops in a muslin bag during boil or would they not mix in as well being contained in a bag?
Thanks
I would use a nylon bag. Like the paint strainer bags. Muslin may swell too much and not allow free flow of the wort through. The bag needs to be large enough to not become tight when the hop pellets swell. I think(?) a one quart bag will hold 1 ounce of hops without becoming too tight.
I throw my hops in the boil kettle without bagging. I pour from the boil kettle into a bucket lined with a fine mesh grain bag. Tubing from this buckets spigot goes to the fermentor. At the end of the pour lift the bag to drain the wort from captured hop debris.
I bought a Trub Trapper a while back and it works pretty well. In fact I used it when I did the Sumpin clone a month or so ago, with that much hop material it takes a while for all the remaining wort to drain out of the Trapper. Nothing is going to be 100% effective but the TT comes as close as anything I’ve tried yet. I do ferment in conicals most of the time, so a reasonable amount of hop debris in the fermenter isn’t as big concern.
In my experience, pelletized hops absolutely have to be bagged to avoid screen clogging during the transfer, especially at the quantities used in IPAs. (intrigued to hear about Visor’s experience with the Trub Trapper, though – I’ve been thinking about that lately, and it’s good to get some real world feedback on the device).
Another good option is to make (or buy) a hop spider – I use it frequently for my brews with lots of hops, because I can just keep dropping the additions in over the course of the boil without ending up with a gazillion little mesh bags at the end (or having to pull out a mesh bag from the boil). A few tutorials have been posted online for DIY models, and they’re pretty quick and easy to assemble.
I’ve had pretty rotten luck with whirlpooling…I wonder if it is a kettle size / geometry issue (I am brewing 5 gallon batches in a 10 gallon kettle with a bazooka screen, and don’t use a pump to whirlpool–just stirring). Interestingly, I find whole hops to be supremely trouble-free, and just leave them loose in the kettle to filter trub.
Ditto with Andy and Denny. Brewing with whole hops = no issues. I have to use containment devices to pellets or else its clog city.
I have tried whirlpooling with no bazooka screen several times, and the results are watching all the hop debris in the cone in the middle slowly suck to the spigot in the kettle until it is clogged.
When I use pellets I just let them go through the pump into the fermenter…no problem. Whole hops I bag because they’ll clog the pickup tube. In the Grainfather, I have to bag both pellets or whole.
Yep…every year or two, I wonder to myself, “Hmm…maybe if I pull the screen, I can get a good cone and clear wort into the fermenter.” Then I try it and am reminded why it is a bad idea with my system!
I experienced the same with my keggle Denny. My Spike kettle does not have this issue. I whirlpool for about a minute and leave it to settle for 30 minutes. When ready I open the valve enough to fill the tubing and then dial it way back.
