Hop bag (first time noob question)

[Pyg]

Bought a nylon hop bag at the LHBS.
Never used one before.
After 30 minutes in bag in the boil, I noted I was not getting the thick froth of hops I am used to and not getting that hop smell.

I lifted the bag to find it was retaining liquid (looked like a water balloon).
When lifted the mist pours out the bottom.


For the record using 2 oz of Williamette for 60 min boil.
Will I still fully utilize the hops in a 60 min
Boil?

 

[azdavid]

I ran into the same problem with the nylon bags.. Just seemed to clog up and diminished hop flavors and aroma.
I would always need to tea bag them throughout the boil, way more work than it was worth.
I do like to bag my hops during the boil to reduce the amount of hop trub so I went back to using the cheap disposable muslin hop socks.
Not as efficient as just dumping them in but easy enough to compensate for.

 

[IslandLizard]

I use thick, fine mesh hop bags and have had very little problem with clogging. I "massage" them during the boil and also lift them up with my paddle to drain, every 5-10 minutes, to refresh the wort inside. I get good hop utilization. All my hops are bagged to keep them out of my plate chiller loop. I use large, roomy bags, 9 x 20" or so, possibly a little heavier material than yours. They are weighed down with handful of glass marbles to keep them submerged. Works fine for me, even with 3-4 oz of pellet hops in each (NEIPAs).

 

[Pyg]

I lifted and drained a few times. I massaged a few times with my paddle.
I tea bagged a few times.
We will see how it turns out.

I always learn something new on brew day!

 

[IslandLizard]

I noted I was not getting the thick froth of hops I am used to and not getting that hop smell.

The hop pulp floats first, that's the froth you're now "missing."
Also, anything you smell is aroma lost to the beer.

Did you also bag your late boil or whirlpool hops? Or are you just going to dry hop it?

 

[mongoose33]

I did the hop spider thing, the hop bag thing, the cylindrical screen thing. I was never happy with the hop utilization in any of them. I lifted, I drained, I placed it over the places where bubbles from the boiling would filter up through.

All I could figure was that to use such devices I'd have to increase the amount of hops used.

 

[Pyg]

The hop pulp floats first, that's the froth you're now "missing."
Also, anything you smell is aroma lost to the beer.

Did you also bag your late boil or whirlpool hops? Or are you just going to dry hop it?

I only used hops in the 60 min boil

 

[NGD]

Been interested in the efficacy of hop utilization using nylon bags myself. Last brew had 5oz of hops during boil, which meant alot of tea-bagging. Still have scorch marks on the family jewels. Think I may have been doing it wrong.

Seriously though, there was alot of movement of the hop sock, which had a substantial amount of hops in it. I’d prefer less things to keep track of during boil, but I do like the lack of hops littering up the bottom of my kettle.

Do stainless hop spiders at a certain size opening work better?

 

[IslandLizard]

Been interested in the efficacy of hop utilization using nylon bags myself. Last brew had 5oz of hops during boil, which meant alot of tea-bagging. Still have scorch marks on the family jewels. Think I may have been doing it wrong.

Seriously though, there was alot of movement of the hop sock, which had a substantial amount of hops in it. I’d prefer less things to keep track of during boil, but I do like the lack of hops littering up the bottom of my kettle.

As long as the hop spider or hop bags are roomy and you massage and drain them during the boil every few (5-10) minutes, so highly flavorful wort gets out while fresh wort gets in, I expect extraction of hop oils to be very good.

When talking about "hop utilization," this is mostly referred to as the bittering reactions that take place, the isomerization of alpha acids, during the boil. This process yields your IBUs. This should be distinguished from the mere extraction of hop oils by the surrounding hot or boiling wort, which refers to hop extraction efficiency.

Wort does not boil inside hop bags, spiders or hop baskets, it is a few degrees lower than the surrounding boiling (simmering) wort, so hop utilization (bittering) will be lower inside the bags and baskets. I doubt wort exchanges freely across the membranes of such containers by means of convection currents or otherwise, and it would be nice to see some decent study on that process. Short of that evidence, as long as you make sure wort inside those containers gets exchanged frequently with the surrounding wort (through good stirring, massaging, draining/tea bagging), I can't see much reason why hop extraction efficiency and utilization (yielding bitterness) would suffer much, if any.

 

[mongoose33]

Been interested in the efficacy of hop utilization using nylon bags myself. Last brew had 5oz of hops during boil, which meant alot of tea-bagging. Still have scorch marks on the family jewels. Think I may have been doing it wrong.

Seriously though, there was alot of movement of the hop sock, which had a substantial amount of hops in it. I’d prefer less things to keep track of during boil, but I do like the lack of hops littering up the bottom of my kettle.

Do stainless hop spiders at a certain size opening work better?

I have one like this:

It does keep a lot of the hop trub out, but I don't get the kind of pop from the hop that I'd expect if I just threw the hop pellets into the boil w/o the spider.

I even positioned it so that boil bubbles would come up through it, I lifted it a few times to let the hop tea drain into the boil, but nothing I did overcame that. I figured I'd just have to use more hops if I were to use this again. Events have overtaken the use of it--I'm converting to the steam condenser setup with the lid on the kettle, so I don't know how to use it with my electric element as well as no way to hang it on the side of the kettle.

I'm whirlpooling so a lot of that ends up in the middle of the kettle, keeping it out of the fermenter anyway.

 

[IslandLizard]

Do stainless hop spiders at a certain size opening work better?

There are quite a few threads on these baskets. 400 micron screens seem to be the minimum to prevent extensive clogging, 800 micron probably too much open. Not sure if that's the opening size or the mesh spacing (includes the thickness of the wire). I've looked on McMaster for a better understanding on how those are related.

6" x 14" baskets seem to be the minimum size for 5-10 gallon batches. The 4" x 10" baskets are way too small, only holding an oz or 2 of hops. Their (mesh) surface area is very small too.

 

[jimmyjusa]

I've been thinking about hop bags over the past few batches, I've wondered if one way way to get the hop flavors and bitterness into the wort but out of fermenter could be to throw them loose into the boil and then use a sanitized paint strainer bag or something over the bucket (since I'm using buckets to ferment in) to catch the debris. I'm using a mesh strainer right now that catches a majority of the gunk but I'm thinking the bag would be faster and easier to strain the gunk with.

 

[IslandLizard]

I've been thinking about hop bags over the past few batches, I've wondered if one way way to get the hop flavors and bitterness into the wort but out of fermenter could be to throw them loose into the boil and then use a sanitized paint strainer bag or something over the bucket (since I'm using buckets to ferment in) to catch the debris. I'm using a mesh strainer right now that catches a majority of the gunk but I'm thinking the bag would be faster and easier to strain the gunk with.

Absolutely!
You could use the mesh strainer hanging inside the bag to catch the larger pulp from the wort, then let the strainer bag catch the smaller particles, and may not clog as fast.

Just use good sanitation during the process.

 

[jimmyjusa]

Absolutely!
You could use the mesh strainer hanging inside the bag to catch the larger pulp from the wort, then let the strainer bag catch the smaller particles, and may not clog as fast.

Just use good sanitation during the process.

Thanks, i usually mix up starsan during the boil in my fermenting bucket and throw everything in there including the strainer for probably a half hour, so throwing a strainer bag in there to soak doesn't seem like much more of an issue.

 

[mongoose33]

I've been thinking about hop bags over the past few batches, I've wondered if one way way to get the hop flavors and bitterness into the wort but out of fermenter could be to throw them loose into the boil and then use a sanitized paint strainer bag or something over the bucket (since I'm using buckets to ferment in) to catch the debris. I'm using a mesh strainer right now that catches a majority of the gunk but I'm thinking the bag would be faster and easier to strain the gunk with.

Early on in my brewing history I used a sieve to try to strain out as much trub as I could as the wort went into the fermenter.

It was a big sieve, and it would fill fast, so that it would clog up. A bag isn't going to be materially different--if anything, smaller openings--so you'll want to think on that as you do it.

One possibility is to suspend it over the bucket as if you were doing Brew-in-a-Bag, then let it drain into the bucket. That would make me a little nervous, as the less time the wort is exposed to the atmosphere and all the bacterial nasties hitching rides on fruit flies and dust particles, the better.

Just a thought...

And BTW, other than trying to keep the trub out of the bottles, there's not really any reason to fear it. In fact, I think it's helpful for the yeast. I got to the point where I just dumped it all into the fermenter. My beer was always as good or better that way as compared to trying to filter that stuff out.