Some fancy-smancy filters. I used to bag my hops in a fine mesh bag. But kinda along the lines of what Paul said, I could pick the bag out of the boil and it would hold the wort. If it’s holding the wort, then it’s also holding in the hop goodness. I find better results of just tossing the hops in the boil. I filter going out of the keg into a bucket. My filters cost 27 cents… and I get two in a pack!
This also works… I only use the stainless hop spider when I am using my plate chiller though… You want to avoid the hops going into the plate chiller. I have not noticed any issues with hop flavors or bitterness utilization since switching about a year ago.
Makes sense with the plate chiller. I have an immersion chiller for now. But changed up my filter system a ton before I decided less is more… I zip tie a sanitized leg stocking on the end of the hose going into a bucket. It’s kinda like germ-x… It stops 99.9% of any debris from coming through 
+1. Works pretty well.
This is exactly what was happening to me with hop bags which is why I decided to give this filter a try. I’ve only used it once so far, but when I pulled it out of the kettle after chilling all of the wort drained out pretty much immediately which made me think it was providing better wort contact than the hop bags.
I might try using it as a filter between the kettle and the fermentor as well, in conjunction with whirlpooling and a side pickup tube.
I can usually get away with up to two ounces of pellets floating free in the boil. Any more than that, and I run the risk of clogging the liquid out tube in my fermentor when transferring to serving kegs. This is the issue I am trying to avoid.
I’m getting better hop utilization with the screen than with hop bags. Next brew day (Sunday) I will measure the temp in the column and see where it’s at. When I ordered mine, I ordered it larger so it would fit closer to the bottom of my kettle assuming boiling action and convection action would likely be greater. I recirculate into the filter and have not experienced the kettle level drop that Blatz did. I use pretty much only pellet hops, so I still get a lot of debris in the kettle, but every bit strained out at any point helps. I use a pump and really like not having to clamp off boiling hot hop bags on the side of the kettle to keep them being sucked against the kettle outlet too.
i experienced this issue even when not chilling ( I use a CFC).
I like the idea of putting a sanitized hop bag on the output.
Here’s what I leave currently behind - IIRC this was a medium hop bill (9-12oz).
I just shop vac it out and proceed with normal cleaning. Not really any better…or worse than the hop spider cleaning routine, but my hops are swimming with the whole wort…
I guess I should have stated I’m using a plate chiller… My cold wort doesn’t go back into my kettle typically… I run it through the plate chiller at whatever speed will get me the output wort at the temp I want. If I were to recirculate then I could see the possibility of cold break getting into the screen… I have recirculated before with it… If I put the hose into the hop spider it will clog with cold break… if I put it outside it doesn’t clog. One other thing I should note… My hop spider is 8 inches across and 18 inches tall. I have the 50 mesh screen on it.