All pellet brews?
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bigdave
All pellet brews?
Just a quick question... If I brew a 100% pellet ale, am I likely to run into hop stopper problems when it comes to draining the boiler?
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Morten
Re: All pellet brews?
Yes, is the short answer 
But you can avoid problems if you use hop bags.
But you can avoid problems if you use hop bags.
Re: Odp: All pellet brews?
Or adopt whirlpool technique.
Bags impact hop utilization, specially if tightly packed.
Bags impact hop utilization, specially if tightly packed.
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fisherman
Re: All pellet brews?
I use a hop spider I made myself , No pellet gets through it however fine. I bought my nylon hop bag from The Homebrew Shop for about £ 3. 50 they are very strong and reuseable.I find pellet hops brilliant. Search hop spider online.
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jmc
- Even further under the Table
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Re: All pellet brews?
I've used hop bags when using 100% pellets but found I had loads more hot / cold break end up in my FV.
I'd been used to whole hops acting as a filter bed so I really noticed the difference, especially as I tend to reuse yeast cake.
Most on here say that's not an issue however, as if you're using a plate-chiller you tend to get cold-break in FV anyway.
Supposedly you're able to minimise this by creating a whirlpool to gather break in centre of copper, but I think you need really large boilers 80L+, with nothing obstructing whirlpool (eg elements etc) to make this work.
I'd been used to whole hops acting as a filter bed so I really noticed the difference, especially as I tend to reuse yeast cake.
Most on here say that's not an issue however, as if you're using a plate-chiller you tend to get cold-break in FV anyway.
Supposedly you're able to minimise this by creating a whirlpool to gather break in centre of copper, but I think you need really large boilers 80L+, with nothing obstructing whirlpool (eg elements etc) to make this work.
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fisherman
Re: All pellet brews?
When the brew is finished I remove the cooling coil and hop spider and leave for eight hours for the true to settle out and drain slowly. This way I get not rub at all. Patience can be very hard but I am retired so easy for me just chill. Happy brewing
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fisherman
Re: All pellet brews?
I made a cheap version first to see if was a good idea.Imagine a 500grm yogurt pot turn it upside down and make a large hole in the bottom of the pot . Now put the hop bag over the large end and make a cable tie slide down over the narrow end of the pot to hold the bag in place between the cable tie and the lip of the pot. drill or in my case burn 4 holes into so skewers can be pushed into the yogurt pot just above the top of the bag in a x formation to rest on top of the boiler. So a hop spider for the cost of a hop bag.My prototype rods were galvanised coat hangers straightened like skewers. Just tip pellets in the hole at the top.