Pellet hop debris control

[nealperkins]

Before I went electric, the pellet hop debris was controlled well by whirl pooling and a diverter - worked well.

Now the elements do not allow for effective whirl pooling. I do make a lot of hoppy IPAs. The hop bags are a concern for utilization (and contact with an element). The stainlessbrewering.com hop spyder (8" size) works only well with less hops (it does plug and stirring/scraping the sides releases half the hops). Doing nothing results in a loss of a LOT of wort.

So, what do you do? (Remember, there are a bunch of hops in these boils...mostly 10-15 gallons)

Thanks!

 

[rgauthier20420]

What type of vessel are you boiling in? I've never seen any proof that using the paint strainer bags reduces utilization nor have I noticed it in my IPA's (might be different for others). If you use a hop bag you could simply make sure it stays above the elements my marking how low it can go. Some good stirring during the boil will have alleviate any concern for under utilization IMHO.

 

[kal]

I use a Hop Stopper. Never had any issues, even in the hoppiest of IIPAs.

Looks like this:

In use brewing a Pliny the Elder clone (23 oz of hops in a 10 gal batch):

Here's another one I brewed - it was an experimental APA with 16 oz added and steeped after flameout (no hops during the boil):

No problems at all with this one either.

Kal

 

[Weezy]

I use jumbo tea infuser balls. They work good for dry hopping in corneys too.

 

[burkesw]

Kal,

If you don't mind me asking, what size mesh did you use? Mcmasters has Corrosion-Resistant Type 304 Stainless Steel Wire Cloth, would 28x28 with 0.01 wire diameter and 52% open area work? Or should it be a finer mesh?

 

[kal]

If you don't mind me asking, what size mesh did you use?

I purchased the commercial version of the Hop Stopper, so I don't know.

Kal

 

[Strecker25]

my hop stopper showed up for my 15G blichmann and honestly between the success stories on Kal's site and the ease of installation (and removal for cleaning) it seems like 77$ well spent.

that being said, i haven't brewed on the system yet so i cant officially endorse it but I have high hopes

 

[nealperkins]

All the kettles are 28 gallon MoreBeer straight wall kettles, mine has a diverter plate in front of the port. If the pic post works you can see it here:


The device I referred to is an 8" hop spider that can be viewed here:
http://stainlessbrewing.3dcartstores.com/Hop-Spider-with-seam-welds_p_158.html. I do not know the screen size, but it does clog and scraping it to enhance the 'ventilation' pushes some hops through the screen.

In order to use the hop stopper I believe I would have to remove the diverter plate, can certainly be done. But, I would have questions about flow rate because I currently sanitize my counter flow chiller by pumping boiling wort through it for 10 minutes or so.

Those posted pictures are indeed impressive, especially the lack of wort.

 

[kwadric]

I whirlpool with my electric element going almost all the way across the my 8 gallon pot. The picture is from 0.5oz of pellet hops thrown in at flame out in a 2.5 gallon batch. I recirculate through a hop back with rice hulls and a plate chiller. I started with the valve on the exit of my March pump a little less than half open to get a slow whirlpool and then increased the flow rate after about 10 minutes.