If I was to stir

Brewing Processes
1

If I was to stir my boiling wort with my hop spider, would much of the pelletized hops get through the 300-micron mesh during the 60 minutes I’m planning to boil, and the 20 minutes I’m planning to slowly simmer after the boil? The first 60 minutes will have the bittering hops, while the ending 20 minutes of gentle simmering will have the flavoring hops.

My hop spider is sixteen inches high and has a 1x2 piece of wood attached to its vertical “fingers.” The piece of wood is long enough to keep the spider upright in the kettle. This is how I am able to use the spider to stir the wort. The long handle is so I can stir the wort over a 150,000 BTU propane burner and not have my pants catch fire because I’m too close for too long.

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arborfab.com made the hop spider per my design. They screwed-up in how they welded the hangers: They’re upside-down and backwards. The five-inch fingers are supposed to be on the outside of the kettle and going down the side. The short fingers (just barely visible) are supposed to be welded to the top ring of the thing. I thought they’d made me something unusable until I came-up with what you see here. The long handle is what saved the day-- made it useful after I thought I’d spent $70 for nothing. The piece of wood extends beyond the periphery of the kettle by six inches on either side, so there’s plenty to grab…

I think I can put a weighted hop sack into the spider to further reduce hop sludge getting into the fermentation bucket.

My kettle is a tiny piece short of seventeen inches deep, which is why I believe I can stir the wort. I’m just concerned that I’ll get hop sludge into my fermentation vessel. Opinions, please…

2

I don’t know about hop particles getting through a 300 micron mesh. My big question is why you want to stir boiling wort. The circulation from the boiling, and even the simmering, should provide enough stirring that anything else is unnecessary.

3

I’ve been led to believe that stirring the wort during the boil is required to keep it from scorching on the bottom of the kettle. I’m strictly an extract brewer, so no false bottoms are ever to be found in my kettle. My thinking is to have three times the weight of water in my kettle as there is extract syrup. I have 9.039 pounds of amber; I’ll have 27.117 pounds of water in the kettle. That’s 3.25 gallons.

I suppose I could pour the wort into my fermenter through a 110-micron nylon cloth I have. Just have to sanitize it first…

4

You only need to make sure the extract is fully dissolved in the water before you apply high heat to the kettle.

The rule I followed when I used extract was to remove the kettle from the heat once I reached a high enough temp to dissolve the extract and then put it back on the heat to continue on to the boil. It’s the concentrated sugar that will scorch, not the diluted wort mixture.

Hope that’s helpful.

Paul

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5

Remove your kettle from the heat when you add your extract. stir it in and fully dissolve it, then put back on the heat. This should eliminate any scorching.

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