[quote=“kcbeersnob”][quote=“Helvetica”]
I like the Hop Spiders from Stainless Brewing. I also like their hop baskets for kegs, which I can use in a carboy secondary until I start kegging; might have to get the smaller one to accommodate a 5 gal. carboy- haven’t measured it yet.[/quote]
I’ve got a kettle basket and a stainless spider/basket from stainless brewing. I liked them at first, but I have grown to dislike their performance. Mainly because the bottom and sides of the basket blocks too easily with solids. The inside of the basket simply does not boil. I find that I get the worst performance when the grain bill has a high percentage of wheat/rye. I love the simplicity of just removing the basket out to remove hops after the boil, but it’s not worth the poor performance.
For my most recent IPA I simply used a kettle screen and got improved hop utilization. I did not press my luck with a high protein grain bill. After the boil, the flow rate was adversely affected by break material, but it worked OK. I would use it again, but only with an all barley wort. I would only use this with a pump.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/mash ... creen.html
This is what I’ve used for my last few batches and has become my new default: http://www.ihomebrewsolutions.com/shop/ … struction/. Flow rate has been acceptable in all cases. The one with 25% wheat was compromised slightly, but was still acceptable. I would hesitate to use this without a pump with an all barley grain bill. I would only use this with a pump if my grain bill was high protein.
YMMV.
My set-up:
10 gal Blichmann kettle
Blichmann floor burner
March 809 pump
DudaDiesel plate chiller
Almost exclusively use whole hops[/quote]
neither of those work well with pellet hops, just so the OP knows