Leaf vs. Pellet

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YeastWhisperer

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by YeastWhisperer » Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:16 pm

micmacmoc wrote:Is this why our cousins are so keen on taking the beer off the yeast cake/trub after a few days? I've always considered this unnecessary and another potential cause for infection.
Using a secondary fermentation vessel is a practice that is falling out of favor in the U.S. I still use a secondary fermentation vessel if I do not have keg space available a week after primary fermentation is complete (I would rather quit brewing than go back to bottling). I have found that leaving green beer on the break for much longer than a week after primary fermentation is complete often results in the addition of a harsh bitter edge to the finish to takes quite a while to remove via cold conditioning. The beer that I kegged on Saturday had been in a secondary fermentation vessel for six weeks. I racked it to a secondary fermentation vessel (a glass carboy) two weeks after I pitched the yeast. If I had left it in the primary fermentation vessel for eight weeks, it would have been a "dumper" (i.e., a beer only fit for pouring down the drain).

The risk of infecting one's beer is much lower after fermentation is complete than before it has started. Green beer is devoid of oxygen and has a pH in the 4.2 range. If these two attributes were not enough to keep most microorganisms at bay, beer also contains ethanol, which is toxic to microorganisms. Most infections are pitched with the yeast culture.

hophit

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by hophit » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:01 pm

I use a stainless steel mesh disc shaped 'pocket' with the outlet copper pipe inside it. I go the design from Jim's somewhere. Seems to work fine with pellets. When I used to use a flexible mesh hose, it blocked all the time - real PITA. In order to succeed, I think you just need a fine enough mesh and enough surface area from which to draw the wort through to avoid a blockage.

Even if I use whole leaf in the boil, I now always use pellets for dry hopping in secondary, which I now do simltaneous to crash cooling. They properly mix into the beer and seem to be more effecitve. I guess it comes down to surface area to weigth ratio of disintegrated pellets being much higher than whole leaf hops, alongisde better contact with the wort. After 2 weeks crash cooling in secondary they just drop to the bottom with any remaining trub. This, unlike whole leaf which just seem to float around at/above the top of the water-line (wort-line?!).

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DeadFall
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Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by DeadFall » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:29 pm

hophit wrote:I use a stainless steel mesh disc shaped 'pocket' with the outlet copper pipe inside it. I go the design from Jim's somewhere. Seems to work fine with pellets. When I used to use a flexible mesh hose, it blocked all the time - real PITA. In order to succeed, I think you just need a fine enough mesh and enough surface area from which to draw the wort through to avoid a blockage.
This is kind of the route I'm going down, I'm going to put a T at the tap. I have two 15cm x 15cm meshes which I'll fold over and seal somehow (just another fold maybe)? I'll cut a tab out which is half the circumference of a 15mm copper pipe and then use a jubilee clip to attach it to a copper pipe. These will be attached to the T so that they're at the edges of the boiler. I'll post some pictures when I build it.
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gnutz2

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by gnutz2 » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:37 pm

I used to be bothered about filtering hops (whole and pellet) and cold break.

Now I have a simple drilled ss tube as a hop stopper, if is blocks I pick the boiler up and tip the contents (cold break/hop matter) into the fermenter.

The only reason I can think of for not wanting this stuff in the fermenter is if you're harvesting yeast.

hophit

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by hophit » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:40 pm

DeadFall wrote:
hophit wrote:I use a stainless steel mesh disc shaped 'pocket' with the outlet copper pipe inside it. I go the design from Jim's somewhere. Seems to work fine with pellets. When I used to use a flexible mesh hose, it blocked all the time - real PITA. In order to succeed, I think you just need a fine enough mesh and enough surface area from which to draw the wort through to avoid a blockage.
This is kind of the route I'm going down, I'm going to put a T at the tap. I have two 15cm x 15cm meshes which I'll fold over and seal somehow (just another fold maybe)? I'll cut a tab out which is half the circumference of a 15mm copper pipe and then use a jubilee clip to attach it to a copper pipe. These will be attached to the T so that they're at the edges of the boiler. I'll post some pictures when I build it.
That's basically EXACTLY what I have done. Works a treat.

hophit

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by hophit » Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:51 pm

DeadFall wrote:
hophit wrote:I use a stainless steel mesh disc shaped 'pocket' with the outlet copper pipe inside it. I go the design from Jim's somewhere. Seems to work fine with pellets. When I used to use a flexible mesh hose, it blocked all the time - real PITA. In order to succeed, I think you just need a fine enough mesh and enough surface area from which to draw the wort through to avoid a blockage.
This is kind of the route I'm going down, I'm going to put a T at the tap. I have two 15cm x 15cm meshes which I'll fold over and seal somehow (just another fold maybe)? I'll cut a tab out which is half the circumference of a 15mm copper pipe and then use a jubilee clip to attach it to a copper pipe. These will be attached to the T so that they're at the edges of the boiler. I'll post some pictures when I build it.

Hopefully this will help. This is the design I used. Works perfectly.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20716

jock128

Re: Leaf vs. Pellet

Post by jock128 » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:58 pm

hophit wrote:Hopefully this will help. This is the design I used. Works perfectly.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20716
That looks like a neat solution to the problem, not too complicated and can be applied to almost any situation. Thanks, I may consider this in the future.

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