Best filter strainer for hops and trub

[Flip2spin23]

If this has been covered please direct me to the thread

I'm building a new bk ,What is ultimate build set up .. for using pellet and whole leaf hops and filtering trub before going into my plate chiller ?

 

[Brulosopher]

Have you already committed to using a plate chiller? I was convinced it was the way to go, then after buying a pump and 30 plate chiller, realized it was terribly inconvenient. I now use a quality immersion chiller efficiently and chill in less time than I used to with my plate chiller. Another thing you don't have to worry about with this type of setup is transferring trub to the fermentors, as it doesn't really seem to matter and may actually benefit the beer on the homebrew scale!

 

[andrhamm]

I used a stainless steel hop spider for a while but got fed up with it.. hard to clean, takes up a ton of space, and just generally didn't make my brew day any easier. I just received my hop stopper from TheElectricBrewery and it looks like it is going to work great. It is a stainless steel screen that attaches to your dip tube. Will be way easier to clean and won't confine the hops during the boil (better utilization). I also regret getting a plate chiller but maybe the new hop stopper will prevent clogging...

 

[Flip2spin23]

Thanks for the replies. No I'm not set on a plate chiller
I'm building a all stainless hard pipes system ...
I just want to spend the money on the system once and be done with my set up

 

[inkedfireman]

Have you already committed to using a plate chiller? I was convinced it was the way to go, then after buying a pump and 30 plate chiller, realized it was terribly inconvenient. I now use a quality immersion chiller efficiently and chill in less time than I used to with my plate chiller. [/URL]

An immersion chiller is cheaper, easier to clean, and doesn't get clogged like a plate chiller can. An immersion chiller is much faster than putting a kettle in a water bath to cool (only realistic up to 5 gallons).

Having said that, an immersion chiller is NOT faster than a plate chiller, if we are talking time to get from flameout to time to pitch yeast.

The same surface area increase that makes an immersion chiller faster than a water bath, makes a plate chiller faster than an immersion chiller. Also, an immersion chiler wastes a TON more water in the process over a plate chiller, as the rate of temperature change slows as the chilling water and the wort become closer in temperature. For some people that is a big factor, for others, not so much.

My experience with a 10 gallon batch was that it took almost an hour to get down to pitching temps with an immersion chiller (using water in the mid 50F temp range.) With an admittedly oversized Duda Diesel B3-36A-30 plate chiller, I go from whatever my temps are at the end of the 20 minute whirlpool (180-190F) going in to 66F coming out, and can get the entire batch through in under 10 minutes. First time I used it, I was shocked that the wort was coming out in the 50F range (basically the same as the ground water temp), had to slow the chilling water going in it to bring the wort coming out back up into the 60's, as I was pitching an ale yeast.

You simply can't do that with an immersion chiller. You can make great beer with an immersion chiller, and some people might not mind relaxing for a bit while the wort cools. Me, my brew day is long enough, saving 45 minutes with a plate chiller is worth it to me. If you're making lagers, the time savings would be hours.

A plate chiller does take more time to clean correctly than an immersion chiller, so in that way I can see it being less convenient than an immersion chiller. If you have a pump ONLY to use with the chiller, that ups the cost differnce quite a bit, too. As I'm running eHERMS and am pumping hot PBW around the system anyways, it was no big change in my cleaning load to backflush the plate chiller at the same time. I can even use the output on the plate chiller to fill my HLT with hot water for cleaning. Then, the day before I brew, I pull the rubber gasket out of the female hose connection on the water side of the plate chiller and put it in the oven for an hour at 350F, then turn it off and let it sit overnight. Voila, sterilized plate chiller ready to go!

Getting back to your original question, I'm using a BK with a tangential inlet so that I can whirlpool with a pump. This along with a Brewers Hardware filter works pretty good with pellet hop gunk, haven't plugged my plate chiller yet. With whole hops, I think you have to use some sort of stainless screen in the BK, whether its a large hop spider or a screen on the dip tube. Whole hops will plug a pump right/now if you don't filter them out, AMHIK. Then a plate chiller can be used without too much drama.

 

[Brulosopher]

Having said that, an immersion chiller is NOT faster than a plate chiller, if we are talking time to get from flameout to time to pitch yeast.

...

My experience with a 10 gallon batch was that it took almost an hour to get down to pitching temps with an immersion chiller (using water in the mid 50F temp range.)

An hour?! You weren't using it right. I regularly chill 12 gallons of wort in 8-12 minutes (depending on groundwater temp) with my IC using the proper techniques:

1. Source water on full blast
2. Constant agitation of the wort via movement of IC and/or stirring.

 

[dmcman73]

There are pro's and con's to everything. I used an immersion chiller and moved to a stainless CFC while recirculating back into my BK to cool my entire batch down at once and it's great, it cools my wort down a bit faster then my immersion and it's not all that hard to clean. I like my immersion chiller but I was tired of stirring (which I could have avoided by building a re circulation arm in the center of the chiller) plus where my setup was from my sink was far and I had to hold the immersion chiller in place or the weight of the hose would make the chiller come out of the kettle and not be in full contact with the wort (I have electric kettles to the immersion chiller would sit higher in the kettle due to the electric heating elements)

Back on topic: I use this hop spider, all stainless construction. I first use it during my mash out where I will run some silicone tubing from my MT outlet to the inside of the hop spider to filter out any stray grains and any other material. Then I rinse it out and use it for my pellet hops during my boil. Anyone that tells you that the hop spider is not that good because of poor utilization is not 100% correct. The hop spider is long and it is wide so during a vigorous 60 minute boil the hops in the hop spider are free floating, they're not clumped and compacted into one place which would cause under utilization, in other words, you need to size you hop spider to how many gallons you are going to brew. If you use one that's too small, say one that's good for a 5 gallon batch, for a 20 gallon brew where it calls for X amount more hops than a 5 gallon batch then your hops will be compacted in and not get properly utilized. Is it bulky? Not really, I have a 10 gallon all electric kettle where it hangs off the side. I still have plenty of room to stir, add other items into the kettle etc and it has never gotten in the way. The hop spider is easier to clean then a hop blocker in my opinion since all you have to do is remove the hop spider, dump the spent hops and then use the spray nozzle from your sink to rise it clean with hot water and a bottle brush. With the hop blocker, you have to scoop out all of that hop mass out of the bottom of your kettle prior to cleaning your kettle out.

 

[Flip2spin23]

I have a glycol chiller that I can set at any temp for any chiller ..

Home scale home brew , I guess its more about what you have to use View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1417715710.914525.jpg
I have this collecting dust in my office

 

[Flip2spin23]

ttt ,
Ok ,What if mount a herms style coil in my boil kettle .
Then recirculate at the end on the boil to create a whirl pool , start flowing thru the coil in the kettle for a cool down time of about 3 min to 75-78 f .
Let the cold break and hops settle to the middle for 10 min or so then transfer to conical fermenter ?

Is anyone doing something like this ?

 

[gbarker121]

^That's an interesting idea... leaving both hot AND cold break in the BK. Is 10 minutes enough time though? I dump cold break and trub out the bottom of my conicals before pitching and after resting for a few hours. I don't want to hijack but am I waiting longer than necessary?

 

[Flip2spin23]

10 min probably not , more like 20 minutes to settle in brew kettle , then 30 plus minutes in the fermentor drop trub then pitch yeast ....


That also seems like cleaning would be alot quicker = quicker brew day and alot less mess

 

[gbarker121]

I also should say that I use the hop filter you've got gathering dust. It works great with the following caveat. If I fail to whirlpool a beer with a ton of pellet hops, I can choke the filter in a hot minute.

If I whirlpool for 10 minutes, wait 20 minutes for things to settle and then drain/chill through the filter (Filter in front of the chiller), everything works fantastic. Virtually nothing comes out of my plate chiller during a reverse PBW recirculation cleaning at the end of the day.

I also use it as an inline debris filter when kegging dry hopped beers from my conical which has made closed pressure transfers a snap. I purge the line and the filter with CO2 from the first keg to minimize exposure to oxygen.

 

[inkedfireman]

An hour?! You weren't using it right. I regularly chill 12 gallons of wort in 8-12 minutes (depending on groundwater temp) with my IC using the proper techniques:

1. Source water on full blast
2. Constant agitation of the wort via movement of IC and/or stirring.

I read the article about proper IC use you linked to, and saw the pic of the IC you're using. The article stressed using a garden hose bib for greater flow than a sink could provide, and having it on full flow. A quick google search of "garden hose bib flow" gave flow rates of 10-20 gallons per minute. The IC you are using looks like it is coiled to have most of the coils flat, concentrating them near the base of the BK, so when you talk of "constant agitation," I have to assume you mean constantly raising and lowering the IC through the hot wort while chilling.

So, what I'm picturing in my mind is 10 minutes (middle range of your stated 8-12 mins range) of raising and lowering the IC, while using 150 gallons of water (15gpm X 10 mins, middle of the 10-20gpm I found quoted online) to cool 12 gallons of wort. If that's the "correct" way to use an IC, you're right, I wasn't doing it correctly. That also means you'd have to wait until you were done chilling to start any sort of whirlpool, no?

I'm not saying your way is bad, and I'm sure you can make great beer that way. I will say it's terribly wasteful of water, and I'd hardly characterize it as more convenient than a plate chiller, but hey, rock out! If you prefer that, enjoy!

 

[Flip2spin23]

I read the article about proper IC use you linked to, and saw the pic of the IC you're using. The article stressed using a garden hose bib for greater flow than a sink could provide, and having it on full flow. A quick google search of "garden hose bib flow" gave flow rates of 10-20 gallons per minute. The IC you are using looks like it is coiled to have most of the coils flat, concentrating them near the base of the BK, so when you talk of "constant agitation," I have to assume you mean constantly raising and lowering the IC through the hot wort while chilling.

So, what I'm picturing in my mind is 10 minutes (middle range of your stated 8-12 mins range) of raising and lowering the IC, while using 150 gallons of water (15gpm X 10 mins, middle of the 10-20gpm I found quoted online) to cool 12 gallons of wort. If that's the "correct" way to use an IC, you're right, I wasn't doing it correctly. That also means you'd have to wait until you were done chilling to start any sort of whirlpool, no?

I'm not saying your way is bad, and I'm sure you can make great beer that way. I will say it's terribly wasteful of water, and I'd hardly characterize it as more convenient than a plate chiller, but hey, rock out! If you prefer that, enjoy!

Are you referring to me ?
I have a glycol chiller set on a loop for my chiller / Im not using ground water ...
I start out at 38f and full blast is not all ways the best with stainless ...

 

[inkedfireman]

No, I was answering Brulosopher.

Sorry about the threadjack.

 

[augiedoggy]

There are pro's and con's to everything. I used an immersion chiller and moved to a stainless CFC while recirculating back into my BK to cool my entire batch down at once and it's great, it cools my wort down a bit faster then my immersion and it's not all that hard to clean. I like my immersion chiller but I was tired of stirring (which I could have avoided by building a re circulation arm in the center of the chiller) plus where my setup was from my sink was far and I had to hold the immersion chiller in place or the weight of the hose would make the chiller come out of the kettle and not be in full contact with the wort (I have electric kettles to the immersion chiller would sit higher in the kettle due to the electric heating elements)

Back on topic: I use this hop spider, all stainless construction. I first use it during my mash out where I will run some silicone tubing from my MT outlet to the inside of the hop spider to filter out any stray grains and any other material. Then I rinse it out and use it for my pellet hops during my boil. Anyone that tells you that the hop spider is not that good because of poor utilization is not 100% correct. The hop spider is long and it is wide so during a vigorous 60 minute boil the hops in the hop spider are free floating, they're not clumped and compacted into one place which would cause under utilization, in other words, you need to size you hop spider to how many gallons you are going to brew. If you use one that's too small, say one that's good for a 5 gallon batch, for a 20 gallon brew where it calls for X amount more hops than a 5 gallon batch then your hops will be compacted in and not get properly utilized. Is it bulky? Not really, I have a 10 gallon all electric kettle where it hangs off the side. I still have plenty of room to stir, add other items into the kettle etc and it has never gotten in the way. The hop spider is easier to clean then a hop blocker in my opinion since all you have to do is remove the hop spider, dump the spent hops and then use the spray nozzle from your sink to rise it clean with hot water and a bottle brush. With the hop blocker, you have to scoop out all of that hop mass out of the bottom of your kettle prior to cleaning your kettle out.

I agree with this.... I used to use the 4x10 version of this stainless hop spider but then moved to the 6x14 version which has solved the clumping/under utilization issues I got with 5 gallon batches in a 13 gallon pot..I had made hangers so the smaller spider was better submerged but it still didnt seem to work as well, no issues with this and the larger spider.I will say they are asy to clean with a regular sink spray attachment much easier than using a strainer bag and trying to clean it out so.

I use a duda diesel plate chiller and have been for about a year 30+ brews on it and no issues..chilled 5.5gallons of stout in into the fermenter to 65F last nigh in about 4 minutes. I use a few small 12v and 24v DC food grade pumps that are only $20 and they are more than enough for pushing the wort around (2-3gpm). I also use a stainless 30" long braid which travels the entire bottom corner of my pot to a dip tube and catches anything that the spider doesnt. I only run hot water through my chiller right after use to clean it and then every few brews I run pbw through it now but only because of all the stories I hear... I do recirculate HOT wort through it for a few minutes during the end of the boil to further kill any bacteria they may linger and from time to time I used to soak it in starsan but now its permenently mounted so I recirculate it through my stainless/ silicone plumbing and rims tube before dumping and running a water rinse.
I recirculate during my whole mash so my wort is clear going into the boil kettle and I dont really get much trub after the boil.

 

[Flip2spin23]

Great Info, Great looking set also :rockin:

 

[The_Bishop]

My dual loop ribcage IC, with the whirlpool arm, gets my wort down to pitching temps (below if I'm not paying attention) in about 6 minutes. I brew 5-6 gallon batches. As of my last estimate, I'd say I'm using about 20-22 gallons of water to do it, *and* I'm cooling the whole batch. It's just as fast as my plate chiller used to be, but now I don't need to screw around with hop spiders or backflushing the plate chiller for 10 minutes with PBW to clean it out.

 

[FuriousE]

My IC is similarly fast - 4 to 5 minutes tops for a 5.5 gallon batch, and very easy to clean.

 

[biertourist]

You're definitely focusing on the most important aspect of a boil, kettle, IMHO -hop / trub separation.

I have been playing with this for about 2 years now and I still don't have the perfect system, but here's what I CAN say:

• It's going to be much easier to plan a system to separate either whole hops OR pellets; planning for a system that can deal with both well is a big step up in difficulty
• A bit of whole hops in with your pellet hops can actually help filter the pellet crud (unless you whirlpool in which case this isn't much / any help)
• Hops + Trub creates "concrete" that can clog almost anything; if you filter hops with a first stage and trub with a second you're going to be better off
• IMO, counterflow chillers are the way to go. You get near the efficiency and speed of a plate chiller without the restrictions and clog issues if you don't get all of the particulate out. Cleaning is easier, too. (If you want to recirculation chill back into the boil kettle than you really need to plan your counterflow chiller for high wortflow and you'll probably be buying an expensive copper convoluted chiller.)
• Recirculating back into the kettle while chilling will increase total chill time AND introduce the issue of hop+trub "concrete" but is nice as both the hops and cold break can be filtered out in the kettle AND you're reducing the total wort volume's temp faster which helps with DMS if you brew with a lot of lager malt.
• There's few things more simple than and easier to use than a large stainless hop spider
• Even well designed whirlpool keggles will NOT filter out all pellet hop sludge even with a side pickup; side pickups will waste a LOT of wort, too (but they certainly help and a cordless drill can REALLY, REALLY accelerate your whirpool to insane velocities.

If you've got a conical, then I wouldn't worry about filtering out the cold break -just use the conical as a settling tank for 8-12 hours and dump the break material out of the bottom valve before pitching your yeast. -If you don't have a proper conical with a bottom dump valve then a trub filter is one option but a non-trivial cost and more to clean and results in more beer being wasted.

I recirculation chill in my whirlpool boil kettle and will be adding a hop spider after Christmas. The hop spider will filter out my hops and the recirculated chilling whirlpool should get most of the trub. Today I let wort settle for 8 hours in my fermentation chamber and then transfer into another fermenter off of the cold break material, but I hope that just dealing with cold break in the whirlpool will mean that I can skip this step. If not I'll consider a trub filter but it really just seems like more hassle and cost and I've got plenty of fermenters so the "settling tank" option for trub separation isn't a huge deal to me.


$0.02,
Adam

 

[Brulosopher]

I read the article about proper IC use you linked to, and saw the pic of the IC you're using. The article stressed using a garden hose bib for greater flow than a sink could provide, and having it on full flow. A quick google search of "garden hose bib flow" gave flow rates of 10-20 gallons per minute. The IC you are using looks like it is coiled to have most of the coils flat, concentrating them near the base of the BK, so when you talk of "constant agitation," I have to assume you mean constantly raising and lowering the IC through the hot wort while chilling.

So, what I'm picturing in my mind is 10 minutes (middle range of your stated 8-12 mins range) of raising and lowering the IC, while using 150 gallons of water (15gpm X 10 mins, middle of the 10-20gpm I found quoted online) to cool 12 gallons of wort. If that's the "correct" way to use an IC, you're right, I wasn't doing it correctly. That also means you'd have to wait until you were done chilling to start any sort of whirlpool, no?

I'm not saying your way is bad, and I'm sure you can make great beer that way. I will say it's terribly wasteful of water, and I'd hardly characterize it as more convenient than a plate chiller, but hey, rock out! If you prefer that, enjoy!

While a garden hose can pump out up to 15gpm, the IC restricts that flow. I use between 20-25 gal per 5 gal batch, maybe up to 40 gal of water per 10 gal batch. 150 gallons... my neighbors would shame the hell out of me!

 

[augiedoggy]

Are you referring to me ?
I have a glycol chiller set on a loop for my chiller / Im not using ground water ...
I start out at 38f and full blast is not all ways the best with stainless ...

Not trying to take this thread off topic but I actually just wired up a glycol chiller I got free from work, We use modified beverage line chillers in the ctp processors for the newspaper industry and when one malfunctions the company policy is replace it and not bother with repairing it (Nuts!) anyways besides using it for fermentation temp control which I have set it up for I'm curious if it will chill fast enough to keep up in chilling with my plate chiller instead of wasting ground water? I have been searching for well over an hour but besides the comment in this thread I have seen no evidence that it works effectively.. I am unsure of the HP rating of my chiller but I do know it draws 3.5 amps at 240v when running... any ideas? Right now I have to run 2 garden hoses to my bathroom for chilling since I dont have a basement and use a spare bedroom as the brewroom...

Also I currently have started whirlpooling my wort prior to chilling and after removing the hop spider from the bk I have noticed it aids even further in keeping any solids from my plate chiller,
my stir bar will hopfully arrive today and I can try out my pwm speed controlled stirbar to see if its more effective than my 24v pumps in whirlpooling.

 

[wmilas]

My 2 cents:

I use a HopBlocker and a counterflow all copper chiller. I don't whirlpool. Chiller is hooked up to a hose bib. At full blast (in the winter) I can easily get the exit wort below 60F with the kettle valve fully open. That makes it about 3 minutes for a 5.5 gallon transfer.

In the summer I have to restrict the flow and takes about 6 minutes because the ground water is warmer.

I know some people dislike it, but I REALLY like my HopBlocker. I don't have to waste the time whirlpooling, and I get very little pellet hop sediment/hot break in my fermentor.

I do get cold break obviously, but its very small. When I'm done with the ferment the amount of non yeast product in the bottom is minimal, if even noticeable at all.

This system only works with pellet hops. Whole leaf will block the HopBlocker.

I flush cleaner and plenty of clean water through the counterflow during cleanup.