Design me a Better Hop Stopper!

[chivelegs]

Hold everything.

I gave my old hop stopper one last chance yesterday, cleaned it out thoroughly, made sure it was tight as a gnats chuff and took off the net curtain stuff. Blow me if it didn't run off like the proverbial pi$$ing racehorse.

Success! And no tinkering needed, (not necessarily a good thing. I like a good tinker.)

[Rick_UK]

I also got fed up with blocked filters and slow run offs so I now use a very large voile bag clipped to the side of the boiler. Its big enough so there is no loss in utilization and easy to open up to add late additions. Also makes cleaning the boiler a lot easier.

I wonder if we'll ever get disposable 'hop bags' as per tea bags?!

Rick

[Hogarth]

I use a copper manifold with holes in it. It works fine at keeping out the hop leaves, but it's not very good at filtering out the hot break. The idea -- probably borrowed from the big breweries -- is that the hops settle against the manifold and form a filter. That's all very well, except that often they don't settle against the manifold at all, and the wort goes through without any sort of filtration. So I'm beginning to think that a stainless mesh or a hop back is in order.

[dmuz]

Has anyone tried using ss braided hose? Only about £2 from bes.

[chivelegs]

I use ss braid in the mash tun but haven't tried in my boiler as i always feared it might short out the element. Now i know i needn't have worried.

[fisherman]

I have found that last hop additions and a 30 min rest. Then cool with my copper coil and rest for one hour and everything settles well. I think use a good hop stopper, Lots of tiny holes under the pipe only and lots of waiting time and no trub or hop debris. I am lucky I am retired so I have loads of time.

[darkonnis]

I use 2 of the bazooka hop stoppers, works well enough. Though I am debating making a netted bag to go round both of them and that should then create a larger surface area and reduce how quickly they get blocked.

[The Dribbler]

I use a variation of the Cornish pasty design. It has worked well, I figure it has no chance of blocking.

[chivelegs]

Bring the thread...back from the dead.
Due to the fact that the slow run-off problem is still an issue, I'm busy designing a hop-stopper at the moment that could pass for a WW2 anti-tank grenade. Will post pics when I have time.

[chivelegs]

It'll stop a Panzer in its' tracks, sir.

[SiHoltye]

In a lot of breweries hot wort leaves the kettle and break forms as the wort runs through the heat exchanger and is carried into the fermenter. Issue may be increased krausen height in the fermenter due to all the protein. Don't worry about detrimental flavour though imho.

[Rick_UK]

Hop bags.

Simple, effective, no hassle, less mess and never another stuck or slow run off.

Run the wort through the open used hop bag when transferring to FV to get the filter effect.

I had no end of problems with various hop filters and would never go back from my trusty hop bags. You can suspend them easily if you want to keep them off the element also. Never noticed a difference in isomerisation especially if you use a big hop bag to maximise circulation of the wort.

Rick

[chivelegs]

Seeing as a hop stopper is there to ...err...stop hops as opposed to stopping hot break going into the fermenter I'm not worried about that too much.

Happily, the Panzershtopper performed well above expectation for one of my bodges. Admittedly it was a porter I made today as I needed to use up the last of a sack of malt so not too many hops (100g), but still came flying out like the proverbial racehorse.
That's one of the army surplus tea strainers http://www.armysales.co.uk/field-cateri ... ea-infuser with a dremmeled-up copper pipe and a jubilee clip holding on some stainless mesh. I'll give it a go with some serious hop action next time.

[rimski]

I run a large hop bag into my FV after cooling when I use pellets, this also has the effect of spraying the wort adding a little oxygen

Something like this Hop Shop