Vertical hop filter for stock pot boiler

[JamesF]

Now my HLT is pretty much there I should crack on with the boiler. It's another 100l stainless stock pot in which I plan to have a couple of heater elements and a side-exit tap. I might add a sight gauge too. Can't decide about that yet. I can see that being able to see the volume would be useful, but on the other hand it's just one more thing to collect debris from the boil.

Anyhow, I've been looking at the vertical hop filter put together by Vossy here: http://v1brewery.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07 ... en-in.html

This design appeals for the same reasons as his. Eventually I want to be able to pump the wort through a chiller and I don't really want a restricted flow.

Any thoughts on the design? Potential pitfalls?

James

[Fil]

have you considered a hop spider, i made mine from some 10mm copper tube and 3 x T pieces, a 5 minute solder job.
i am suspending a double skinned mesh grain bag and am recirculating the boil with a 12v solar pump


and in use


there are SS mesh cylinders you could use too, the problem i can envisage with vossy's vertical wall filter is maintaining the edge seal when the pot and metal warms up with the boil and expands somewhat, unless well insulated the pot wall will probably not expand at the same rate as the internal filter wall and some bracing may be needed to maintain the wall/edge seal?? tho i am just hypothesising..

[JamesF]

How do you filter the hot break with that arrangement?

My current practice is to allow the boiler to settle for half an hour or even longer after the boil finishes before drawing off the wort. By that stage the hops usually seem to work pretty well as a filter for much of the hot break material.

That's actually one thing I'm not entirely sure about with the vertical filter either. I suspect some hot break material might be drawn sideways through the filter.

James

[JamesF]

I've been thinking some more about this and have come up with some other ideas. I've not written off the hop spider yet, but i'm not keen on the complexity and the possible awkwardness for adding late hops given that I want to have the lid in place and fitted with a "chimney" to route the steam out of the building. The latter is surely something I can work around though.

My goals here are:

- flows enough volume to feed a pump happily
- leaves the hot break material in the boiler
- relatively easy to clean

There seem to be regular comments about the difficulty of cleaning mesh filters fitted on a draw-off tube, so I've discounted those for the moment. I'm also not sure how they could be made easy to remove for cleaning.

A perforated filter the size of the entire pot would foul the heater elements, though I could do that in two pieces I guess.

A perforated filter smaller than the diameter of the pot with a draw-off tube again appears to lack any easy means of removal for cleaning.

I could put an elbow inside the pot on the back of the tap with a short extension (a barrel nipple cut in half, say) and fold up a box of perforated stainless with a suitable size hole cut in it at the end of the top face to fit around the barrel nipple body. That could then just be hooked under the barrel nipple at the start of the boil and removed for cleaning after most of the hops have been scooped out at the end.

Or I could get really radical and go for a bottom drain in the centre of the pot and just put a perforated filter that's easy to remove over the top. That's not really an appealing option though as it would probably require some sort of skirt to support the pot and to prevent lateral stress on the drain fitting when turning the tap on and off.

James

[Fil]

when putting my big system together, (it took quite a while..) I enquiered about letting break material into the FV, planning on a CFC solution i had both hot and cold break getting into the FV.. and the information i got back was not to worry the break material would settle out as trub and could even provide some nutrient and building blocks for a growing yeast population.

letting the post boil liquor sit does allow some break material to settle out and a side drain will minimise pick up of this, and the removal of hop material provides for almost zero deadspace if a lil forward tip is employed at the end of the drain..

[Fil]

tho there is some loss in the post pump cfc and to the tubing to the FV..

[JamesF]

I can certainly see the appeal of the system. Perhaps I'm worrying too much about the break material. I've read so many times that you don't want that in your FV. My current practice even after leaving the wort to sit is to run off the first couple of pints or so and return them to the top of the boiler, just to get rid of the inevitable bits of hop that have made it through the filter before the rest settled on top.

If I put the hop spider to one side I could probably support it on a stand if necessary. That would also allow me to have a small "door" in the lid through which I could drop the late hops without having to remove it (unless I end up with a flexible chimney). I'm also thinking of a CFC, so at the end I'd basically just need to stop the pump, disconnect the hose from the top and reconnect it to the CFC inlet and restart the pump. Would be quite neat. Getting the flow rate right into the spider would probably need a bit of trial and error. Suitable pumps would probably need investigating too.

And if I decide I don't like it I'd have the additional inlet high up on the side of the boiler where it's unlikely to cause a problem with any other future solution.

James

[Fil]

my take on steam removal from the brewshed is simply to sit the kettle in the doorway with a fan behind it, opening the window creates a flow in/out which carries all steam with it.

its worked so far though when raining a towel in the doorway is needed..

[orlando]

If you are recirculating and can return the wort to the pot as in fil's picture then you can effectively set up a whirlpool effect. This will encourage trub to settle in the centre of the pot. This minimises the outer edge collecting it so fitting your pot with one of these should solve all your issues. I'm considering it as a solution for when using hop pellets as my central filter is too easily blocked unless I use all leaf/flowers.






How it starts out.