Spice Infusion ball

[IPADave]

I've experienced some difficulty in transferring from the boil kettle to the primary fermenter as a result of the hop debris. I've looked at the hop spider designs, and thought that a large sized stainless steel spice infusion ball would do the trick. Has anybody tried this? My concern would be pulling it out of the boil at necessary intervals to add hops.

 

[prandlesc]

I've used the hops balls in brewing and found that you need one for each hops addition. I use pellets and not whole hops, so there some different experiences with those who use whole hops. Trying to add hops to a 212* hops ball that is already full is not fun - think boiling hot steel baseball. I've mostly moved back to nylon bags because the hops pellets absorb so much liquid that they pack the infusion balls. My concern is that they become so compacted against the inside of the hops ball that there's not enough wort moving through them. The nylon bags don't seem to have the same compaction issues. I use an additional bag for each hops addition, too. I've also found that the mesh in the nylon bags contains more of the hops pellet debris and I have less in my wort at the end of the boil.

I do sometimes use the infusion balls when I dry hop my kegs.

 

[Yooper]

Even the largest "tea ball" type containers only hold about an ounce of hops, or even a bit less. You don't want to pack them in- they have to be loose in the container so that the wort can penetrate them.

I use them, but the "large" size only holds about 1/2 ounce of whole hops. I use them in the keg for dryhopping, and just use more than one. I like hops bags a bit better, since they are bigger and hold pellet hops better than the strainer/tea ball types.