Hop Utilisation

[Beer O'Clock]

I am having a fiddle about with a hop filter in my 40L Buffalo boiler but there is nothing fitted at the moment. I want to put a brew down Friday, so was wondering if I could get away with using a muslin hop bag for boil ? Will this affect the utilisation of the hops in the copper ?

[flytact]

Shouldn't be a problem. I use a fine mesh nylon paint strainer to hold my pellet hops. I give it a swirl every 5-10 minutes and have never seen a lack of bitterness. I do not change the hop amounts to compensate for the bag.

[boingy]

It's not ideal but as long as you make the bag big enough to let the hops move around it should be OK. Think about the amount of spare space in a tea bag. If you have lots of hops it might be worth splitting them across several bags. There is a school of thought that says that the movement of loose hops in the boiler is beneficial (can't remember why - maybe hot break?) but I'm pretty sure using hop bags will stilll make beer .

[flytact]

I should provide further details. The bags I use are paint strainers meant to fit over a 5 gallon bucket, very big. I suspend it over the kettle using a jig I crafted so I can add hops to the bag when necessary. No picture unfortunately.

[Beer O'Clock]

Thanks for the replies. I shall seek out a sparge bag and use that to give the cones room to swim.