New pellet hop filter review - Lautehex

[phatboytall]

I've got a 120lt stock pot, and filtering pellets is a near impossible task it seems. So far i've tried
- Copper manifold with holes. Nope.
- Stainless steel mesh topedo, DIY. Nope! got blocked super quick with crud.
- Nylon bags off ebay - yep but you need lots of them and they are a bugger to clean out!
Resorted to pouring out through a sieve that got clogged up last week!

High hopes for this from Maltmiller http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... ductId=789, arrived yesterday so here is my review.
It's basically a big coil, like a ss slinky under tension.
Connected it up to my boiler, nice easy fitting. I didn't have the exact connect so used a isolator connection (more on that later!)

Brewed as normal, Tribute clone so not super hoppy. 300g of pellet hops in 100lt of 1060 wort. Not testing it too much on the first go. Cooled for 30mins using IC.

Result? (See page 5 for Review part II)
An absolute disaster!! From the moment we turned the tap on we never got more than a tiny trickle as you can see in the pics.
We tried :
Scraping it with a paddle
Moving it around with a paddle
Pausing for 5mins before restarting
Blowing air back through to clear in case of a blockage

Not at any moment even for a second did it do more than just a trickle.

Thoughts:
1)Does it need to sit a couple of cms above the base?
2) did the connector reduce the output? (It would still have to pass through one the other side of the pot)
3) we were stiring whilst it cooled, but thats neccesary for the IC to work, plus all the crud was clearly at the bottom by then

I'm going to try again in 2 weeks without an isolator connect. If it's no better then it's going back to maltmiller.

Thoughts, ideas pointing out what I'm doing wrong v welcome!! (Yes the connector is fully open! )

[Matt in Birdham]

Thanks for the review - interesting to get a real-world take on these gadgets!
Out of interest, have you tried draining just water through the same setup? I wonder if the slits are too close (needs to be stretched a bit?) or if they just become immediately clogged with hop debris. To be honest, although the design is really neat (and looks like it would make a great MLT filter), it's hard to see why those sort of spring "slits" would be any better than any other type of filter when it comes to hops, which can clog just about anything.

[phatboytall]

Yeah i'm kicking myself now that I didnt save all the crud from the bottom and then I could run it through again as a test with clear water to see what is going wrong.

Will run through tonight with just plain water to check there is nothing else going on there. Its a new isolating connector, and the same as the one outside the pot.

Normally 100lt of water is enough pressure to fire wort out like a hose, we have to have an angled pipe on it to get it in the FV, otherwise the FV would have to be 3 feet back.

If it turns out that the issue is elsewhere or I am doing something stupid I will be the first to take this review down as I want to be fair to maltmiller etc...

Want this thing to work so badly!

[borischarlton]

Hi,

Best thing for me to do is to re test, photo and let you know. In our original test it worked perfectly. I have a 50 litre electric boiler here so it will be perfect for testing. I will get this done tomorrow.

Cheers

Rob

[phatboytall]

Thanks, I will test the pot with water tonight and check the flow. And will try a rebrew in a about two weeks with no isolator, any tips greatly received!

[tuffty22]

Thanks for sharing.

Did the flow actually stop at any point or was it still flowing but painfully slow ?

[phatboytall]

Between slow and painfully slow. Never stopped. It wasnt blocked, if that was the case when we blewback it would have improved, but it carried on exactly the same afterwards.

[chris2012]

Can you explain what fittings you are using to attach to the filter?

[phatboytall]

If you lookc closely its a 12mm? copper pipe, which slides inside of a isolator connector, tightened on with an olive. This has a 15mm screw thread which connects directly to the filter hose.

[Jocky]

Hmm. If you find that the water flow is ok the only thing I can think of changing is that you may need to tighten the loop up a bit so that the coils separate a bit more.

I've installed a lauter hex in my boiler, but only tested it with water so far. Might need to sacrifice some pellets to try it out before I brew.

[borischarlton]

Hi,

I just boiled 300g of pellets in 10litre of water for 10 mins. I had to tip the boiler to get the last out as the liquor was under the hight of the tap but it left just a couple of hundred ml behind, no sign of it blocking.

I think you may have a problem with the connection to the tap, maybe an airlock? Have to tried with clear water?

Cheers

Rob

[borischarlton]

Flow was good to:-

[Aleman]

Have you done something similar in a Braumeister Rob???

[borischarlton]

Not yet, I don't use any filter in the Braumeister at all with hop pellets. Just whirlpool and drain clear wort from the side. Works a treat. Would be a good idea for leaf though. Only thing is the connection doesn't work out, so that would need a solution. I actually finds that the Speidel hop filter works well with leaf.

Cheers

Rob

[floydmeddler]

I use pellet hops exclusively and simply don't use filters in my boiler or fermenters. I have a 120l SS boiler. After the boil and steep, I make sure the hops have all fallen to the boiler floor by not stirring for 10 mins. Then I pass the wort through my counterflow into the fermenter. The boiler tap set up is similar to this:



The elbow set up only sucks up a small circled area of hops off the boiler floor and leaves 99% of hops/trub behind. Yes, some hops go in to the fermenter but it's no worry. I then dry hop in the fermenter with pellets (no muslin bag or filter - just straight in) and then crash cool. Then I add isinglass. After a week of chilling/clearing I open up the fermenter outflow tap which is about 3cm from the bottom of the fermenter and collect around 1L of trub before it runs clear. Then I fill a firkin / polypins / whatever. The beer is crystal after a week.