I boil in a converted sanke and filter with a bazooka t screen placed firmly against the bottom the kettle. It filters great but even with it tight on the bottom of the kettle I still lose at least a half gallon of pure gold when the siphon breaks. I see Denny is using a copper tube with holes drilled in the bottom and I imagine this drains the kettle pretty thoroughly. I’m thinking about making something similar but with larger diameter tubing (1/2 or 3/4). Also considering a couple el cheapo stainless braids. I use a lot of pellet hops in a 5g paint strainer bag. The SS false bottoms look nice but it seems like they could lift or become dislodged during the boil because it looks there’s nothing holding them down. Would love to hear what some of the folks around here are using.
I changed my set up around about 5 or 6 times until I finally got comfortable with what I have used now for about a year. I basically scrapped everything in the brew kettle. The only hardware that I have inside is a copper pipe angled down to catch the bottom edge of the brew kettle. I don’t bother with a hop spider or anything like that anymore. I toss my hop pellets right in (I had 12 ounces in the brew pot for my last brew). I gravity feed into a sanitized fermenting bucket. At the end of my hose going into the bucket, I zip-tie a sanitized nylon knee high hose. This catches just about everything coming out of the brew kettle. Once done draining, I’ll hold the hose up out of the bucket and let it drain out. If there is any solids left in the wort at this point, it is caught in the funnel screen when I dump into the carboy.
Simple yet brilliant.
Yep! A side pickup avoids more of the trub and you can always tip the kettle to help direct most of the wort to the pickup.
I fixed up a new design tonight from 1/2" ID copper mostly because HD sold a union for it which makes for an excellent quick change connector. I can fine tune it if it’s too high or too low.
Trying to figure out how to post pics. Anyone know the secret?
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/cmz8r
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/v3cox
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to display these images.
There is an “insert image” button underneath the Italics button on the post screen. It looks like a mini Mona Lisa. Just put the url inside the “img” tags. I’d do one for you as an example, but I’m at work and your image host is blocked by our firewall.
Nothing.
This was the installation pic about 5 years ago and nothing has changed:
I use coarse mesh bags for whole hops and don’t worry about pellets- which are used rarely. Practically no wort loss or sometimes I’ll discard the pint or so of break material slurry and wort.
I tried that. Maybe the host that I’m using isn’t going to work.
I used a side pickup but then opted for a standard 10 inch false bottom for a sanke keggle with the dip tube in the middle. With the sanke conversion, the side pick up missed too much wort - this shows the benefit of the flat bottomed kettle for guys who have that - the side kick up definitely was easier (less cleaning/disassembly, etc…)
What keeps the FB from becoming dislodged? Is there something on the dip tube that locks it down?
^^^ this is basically what I have on the inside.
Love them side pickups. Change the angle/height of pickup based on anticipated hop/trubload. A good whirlpool and 15 minute wait replaced all the filtering/bagging I messed around with in the past.
The false bottom is perforated stainless with a 1/2 inch hole in the middle for the stainless dip tube, which is curved down at a 90 degree angle as the tube enters from the sidewall. It all fits pretty tight and picks up all but maybe a half cup of the wort. I agree with the side pick up users, though. Find out what you like and go for it. The false bottom combined with leaf hops really gets me clear wort, though. Just sayin!