Straining wort

Yes, this is true. If I transfer into the conical and remember, I can dump the trub/break out the bottom valve.

 

I have one of these and I started a post last spring about how much I hate the little bastard. Good luck putting more than two oz of pellet hops through this thing. It clogs and it is a bitch to clean. YMMV

 

It does clog (because it works), but it's a matter of 5 seconds to invert, smack, and clear. I'm surprised you find it a bitch to clean though. I spray mine with the kitchen sink sprayer for maybe a minute (it helps to spray from the convex side) and it's like new.

 

I've been doing this too. Do you have someone hold it in place? We have been having someone hold it in place but its kind of a pain (to avoid splashing and the bag we are using is way too large). I've been thinking about buying a paint strainer bag and a clamp to hold the bag in place. Thoughts on that?

 

Agree that it is easy to clean. Turn it upside down in the sink and spray. If you don't have a sink that can spray maybe it would be harder.

The only time it clogs on me is with ipas. I started making my recipes larger because of the hop loss. I end up with 5.25 gallons and leave the last bit in the kettle which is all most all hops. If I do this I get little to no clog. Before when I dumped the whole kettle I would have to clear it once or twice.

But the main reason I upped my ipa recipes and stopped pouring the last bit was because I line the bucket with a paint strainer bag also and when that gets clogged it sucks. I would end up with 2 gallons of beer in the bag and would have to squeeze it with gloves for a few minutes to get everything out.

 

I attach the bag to the end of the tube with a couple of zip ties, so it just sits at the bottom of the fermenter. I tried using a paint strainer bag, and while it would probably be fine for the BK to fermenter transfer, it was too porous for filtering hop debris from fermenter to bottling bucket. I ended up with a ton of very fine hop debris in my bottles.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Loooking forward to trying this method.

 

I usually just let the wort sit for 30 seconds to a minute after I get my chiller out of the kettle. (I'm sanitizing other things at this point). I have no ball valve on my kettle. I grab a chair and set it next to my fermenter. I pick up the pot, rest it on my knee, and take a seat. I lean the pot forward and pour into the fermenter. I stop with about a quart, or half gallon left (when it gets thick). It makes great beer.

 

If you ended up with hop debris in your bottles, you didn't rack right. You've got to stay above the bottom of the fermenter and it doesn't hurt to prop a book under the bottom to shift the trub a day or two early. Cold crashing also really helps lock that yeast cake in place. I'm stealing the zip ties idea though.

 

That's what I always heard too but I always had the same results as @FFreak . I don't have the equipment / space to cold crash. Here are my steps to finally get good looking beer.

1. Filter through double mesh strainer from Kettle to primary
2. Move Fermenter day before transfering (both primary and secondary).
3. Use syphon clamp from when transfering (both primary and secondary)
4. Catch debris with fine mesh bag when going from secondary to bottling bucket

 

Sounds fussy. How long do you dry hop for?

 

Usually 5-7 days

 

I wholeheartedly agree. That particular batch, the dry hops never settled out, so I had a difficult time siphoning between the hops floating at the top and those that had precipitated to the bottom. Since that batch, I've been cold crashing and it works wonderfully to get the hops to drop out and the yeast cake to compress.

I've been getting great results with cold crashing by using my daughter's big toy bucket for a water bath and adding frozen water bottles. I fill it all the way to the level of the wort. It doesn't need to get super cold. If I can get it down to 50 degrees for about 2 days, the hops drop right out.

 

I'm more of a 10 day man. If I'm worried about hop debris, I will put the hops in a muslin bag and pull them a day before I rack to bottling bucket. I hope you get this straightened out.

 

Thanks. Sounds like Hop Bags or cold crashing really should help.

 

Do you dry hop during cold crash or before?

 

Actually that is a good question. The past few batches I've cold crashed after dry hopping and it has worked very well. However, my next batch will be a clone of Sean Lawson's Double Sunshine. His instructions are to cold crash BEFORE dry hopping. I'm trying to figure out exactly what that means...do I cold crash, bring back to room temp and dry hop, then cold crash again to get the hops to drop?? Or, cold crash and dry hop while its cold?

 

Interesting. Let me know if you find out more. Have heard great thing about Double Sunshine (or any Lawsons beer) but havnen't had one myself. As always though, thanks for the input.