Anything inherently wrong with straining your runoff through a sanitized nylon paint strainer bag or hop bag?
Just trying to think of ways to catch the last little bits of goop that make their way through.
I know most people use a strainer like this one: http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/products/Double-Mesh-Stainless-Strainer.htmlbut the bail hole is too small for that and i don’t want to have to hold the strainer and hose the whole time.
I use the paint strainer bags for just that purpose. Gives me nice clean wort out of the tun, into the kettle. I’m a big fan.
I don’t see an issue with it. The bag doesn’t necessarily need to be sanitized since it is pre-boil.
sorry guys. I meant runoff after the kettle into the fermentor.
I have also used them then too. Very handy !
yeah,
get the big bag, sanitize and line the bucket (if you use a bucket) with the bag, then you can slowly lift the bag out and pull all the gunk with it.
awesome. do you guys find that the bags trap a sufficient amount of cold break and other trub?
they catch a lot of it. that being said, I haven’t actually done this in about 20 batches. I just run everything off into the fermenter and drink a beer ;D
Don’t worry about straining unless you’re a commercial brewer. The trub will settle out and you can leave it behind in the fermentor. At least that’s what I do.
I hear you but I repitch quite a bit and try to keep my yeast as trub free as possible.
I do the same regarding the yeast. I use the paint straining bags and they work pretty well except when there is a ton of hops. The bag gets clogged and retains a ton of wort so you have to work it from side to side in order to filter it through. Takes some patience and time but works pretty well.
When bottling a dry hopped beer, I also use the paint strainer bag in the bottling bucket to get suspended hops that have not settled out.
Since the filter screen on my carboy funnel gets gummed up with trub pretty quick, I usually put a paint strainer bag over this colander, and put that over my funnel. This catches most of the trub and keeps my funnel screen from getting gummed up.
Also, for beers where I use a buttload of pellet hops, I just slip a sanitized paint strainer bag over my autosiphon and use that to rack to my fermenter. I’ve never had any issues. Paint strainer bags are one of my top multi-purpose tools for the brewhouse.
I figured you were talking about this end of things. This was the meat of the topic I started with the hop pellets thread. I’ve done this once and had very good results. I santized a zip tie and a knee high lady’s hose stalking and attached it to my runoff tube. This works well because the stalking stretches and is much finer than a strainer bag. The brew I tried this with was a Pliny clone, so there was the cold break, and a lot of hop debris. The stalking caught probably a liter of garbage.
Also…run it into a bucket first and then into a carboy if you use a carboy. You’ll never get the stalking out of the carboy if you go directly into that.
I take it a step further when I do this on hoppy brews. I stuff an ounce or so of leaf hops in the stocking as a jury-rigged hopback. I 've also done that on my runoff hose when draining my mash tun as well.
I love this idea! But how much flavor/aroma do you get with cooled wort running through it? Because don’t you run hot wort through a traditional hopback? I mean, dry hopping happens in cooled wort…just curious. I am anxious to hear about this.
I wish I had an answer for you on that, but the beers I’ve done this for already had a boatload of hops. This was really just an idea I had when I was thinking about how I can stuff as much hops as possible into a brew. One day I’ll have to try an experiment with this just to see exactly what I am getting from it.
I wish I had an answer for you on that, but the beers I’ve done this for already had a boatload of hops. This was really just an idea I had when I was thinking about how I can stuff as much hops as possible into a brew. One day I’ll have to try an experiment with this just to see exactly what I am getting from it.
[/quote]
Regardless, I like the idea. I would be interested in results in the experiment.
Me too Paul. I use a large fine mesh bucket bag. It catches most everything.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/nylon-straining-bag-18-3-4-x-19-fine-mesh.html
Dave
EDIT: Forgot to add that I love using paint strainer bags as hop bags in the boil, clipped to the top of the kettle. Unclip, add more hops, reclip. Works great!
I love the idea of the stocking. Going to have to try that!