When I brewed my last batch. I put the hops that are in there for 60 minutes in a bag. The last 20 minutes there was a hop addition every 5 minutes. I put those hops directly in the boil because the hop bag was too dang hot to mess with. When I funneled into the carboy I noticed a lot of hop sediment. After the fact bouncing around the web I found a funnel with a screen filter in it. I almost hit the order button, but then I got to thinking. Wouldn’t the filter get clogged up quickly when pouring from the pot to the carboy? What do you all do, filter, no filter, clean out the filter in the funnel a few time while pouring into the carboy?
Any advice would be great.
Many people have this problem and the funnels with the screen can be used successfully. It’s tricky. When I do it I use a siphon and hold the funnel at an angle while directing the flow from the siphon hose toward the highest part of the screen. I make sure to allow some space between the hose and the screen. This causes the liquid to force the debris to the lower part of the screen which allows the liquid to flow through the screen.
I am planning to build a better straining funnel before my next brew day and here’s what I am going to do. I am going to buy a larger funnel, a conical screen mesh coffee filter and some food safe silicone adhesive. I am going to mount the filter upside down. When I strain my wort it will hit at the top of the cone and the liquid should flow through while the debris will fall to the bottom of and be captured in the funnel.
Also, when you use the siphon you should start out well above the bottom of the vessel from which you are siphoning. All the trub should be on the bottom and so if you are siphoning from higher up you will not have any clogging issue until you reach the point that you have to drop the siphon tube down near the bottom.
I do the funnel filter too and the filter does get pretty clogged but you can usually clear it by scraping your sanitized spoon across it. In addition to the filtered funnel, I’d suggest a double mesh strainer. The one from NB works great. Pour the cooled wort through the strainer right into the funnel. If it gets a bit clogged, stop pouring and shake out the strainer over the sink (or yard if you’re outside) to clear the hop sludge. I’ve had good results with this practice.
With the help of my Wife help, we pour through a fine mesh grain bag into the funnel which has the strainer. The strainer will clog once in a while, but my wife just uses her fingers to scrape across it to unclog it.
sanitize a nylon stocking and pour the wert through it. Rinse it out, and re-sanitize and re-use it. Cheap, easy fix.
As mentioned above the double mesh strainer works well with the benefit of adding aeration prior to the pitch. I used one for a while. However it’s something else to clean and sanitize and another potential source of contamination for the wort.
I put my hops in paint strainer bags for the boil and dry hopping. They’re cheap and effective. I use the 5 gal bags for the boil and 1 gal bags for dry hopping.
Some increase their hop additions by 10% when using a bag. I haven’t felt the need to.
Google hop spider.
