jkatz419
Well-Known Member
I typically shop for ingredients on Saturday and brew on Sunday, so yesterday I'm at my LHBS and I'm super excited to see they have Citra hops, but only in whole cones. My recipe called for Cascade as the finishing hop but I decided to call an audible and substitute in the Citra (having recently drunk an all Citra IPA that was awesome). I've been brewing for 2 years and never used whole hops... Now I've read a lot of beer brewing books and literature that point out the differences of whole vs pellet but in all those sources I never read these two very important facts:
1) Whole Hops will clog up and (maybe) destroy your auto-siphon.
2) Whole Hops should NOT be put into a garbage disposal. (and my disposal will easily handle spent grain)
Yep, learn from my mistakes today. First off I siphon out of my brew kettle because it doesn't have a spigot. The siphon got clogged immediately and when I went to unclog it the little valve piece that makes the whole thing work broke off and I haven't been able to fix it yet. So I broke out the old strainer and removed the cones that way. Once they were removed I tossed them into the garbage disposal... mistake number 2. The disposal managed to grind them up into a thick pulp that clogged my drain pipes. Spent a half hour pulling hop goo out of the sink
I learned my lesson thanks, hop pellets only from now on... but maybe I'll give cones another chance at dry hopping one day.
1) Whole Hops will clog up and (maybe) destroy your auto-siphon.
2) Whole Hops should NOT be put into a garbage disposal. (and my disposal will easily handle spent grain)
Yep, learn from my mistakes today. First off I siphon out of my brew kettle because it doesn't have a spigot. The siphon got clogged immediately and when I went to unclog it the little valve piece that makes the whole thing work broke off and I haven't been able to fix it yet. So I broke out the old strainer and removed the cones that way. Once they were removed I tossed them into the garbage disposal... mistake number 2. The disposal managed to grind them up into a thick pulp that clogged my drain pipes. Spent a half hour pulling hop goo out of the sink
I learned my lesson thanks, hop pellets only from now on... but maybe I'll give cones another chance at dry hopping one day.