[quote=“alanzo”]
I have a Hop Blocker and have used it on dozens of batches in my 10 gallon boilermaker. It gets clogged if you use more than a few oz of pellet hops, I never use whole leaf so I can’t comment there.
Bottom line, it’s kind of useless for keeping out hops. Yeah, funny as that is. I have one and still use hop sacks. But it is useful if you want to drain above the bottom couple inches and leave all the trub behind.[/quote]
Bummer, I had high hopes after watching the video on NB. Of course, in the video it was shown dry, not in actual use. Did you slow down the rate you were draining as the level got down close to the blocker? I’m almost suspecting there’s a mis-print in the instructions; it seems like it would work BETTER with whole hops. They are less dense and should allow more liquid flow even when piled up next to the blocker. What do you think? By the way, thanks for saving me $70 bucks!!!
[quote=“Demus”][quote=“alanzo”]
I have a Hop Blocker and have used it on dozens of batches in my 10 gallon boilermaker. It gets clogged if you use more than a few oz of pellet hops, I never use whole leaf so I can’t comment there.
Bottom line, it’s kind of useless for keeping out hops. Yeah, funny as that is. I have one and still use hop sacks. But it is useful if you want to drain above the bottom couple inches and leave all the trub behind.[/quote]
Bummer, I had high hopes after watching the video on NB. Of course, in the video it was shown dry, not in actual use. Did you slow down the rate you were draining as the level got down close to the blocker? I’m almost suspecting there’s a mis-print in the instructions; it seems like it would work BETTER with whole hops. They are less dense and should allow more liquid flow even when piled up next to the blocker. What do you think? By the way, thanks for saving me $70 bucks!!![/quote]
no its not a misprint, that would be one major misprint and blichman would be buying a lot of product back.
If they are used correctly the times I have seen them used they worked great
[quote=“Demus”]
Bummer, I had high hopes after watching the video on NB. Of course, in the video it was shown dry, not in actual use. Did you slow down the rate you were draining as the level got down close to the blocker? I’m almost suspecting there’s a mis-print in the instructions; it seems like it would work BETTER with whole hops. They are less dense and should allow more liquid flow even when piled up next to the blocker. What do you think? By the way, thanks for saving me $70 bucks!!![/quote]
Maybe I could get it to work better with some more trial and error, but for $60, the product shouldn’t be so difficult to use. One review on NB notes “the other key point is to drain the kettle very very slowly so the settled hops are not disturbed”. I fully opened the valve for most of the draining, this was probably my issue. I’ve only tried it on one batch without hop sacks so far. 5oz of hops in a 6.5 galllon batch.
The Top Tier and Blichmann Kettles are great, though. HIghly recommended all-around. The Hop Blocker has mixed reviews.
Used my hop blocker and therminator for the first time this past weekend. First batch was just a quick extract Mild for a friend, with only 3/4 oz hops in the entire beer it wasn’t much of a test, it did keep all the hops out though. The therminator was awesome though, drained the kettle in a couple minutes and the wort hit the fermentor at 62 degrees, way faster than the IC I was using before. I do have the benefit of some fairly cool Minnesota ground water though.
Next I did 5 gallon batch of IPA with 5 oz of hops in the boil. I considered bagging the hops but figured I’d give the hop blocker a shot. It did an impressive job holding all those hops back, what was left in the kettle was a loose hop slurry. I did whirlpool and let it settle for 15 minutes before draining. Had I used a bag I could have probably squeezed it to get another quart or so of wort out but I felt like the hop blocker did a reasonable job of getting as much wort as could reasonably be expected. I don’t have a pump so I was just using gravity, once the siphon was broken that was all the wort I was getting out.
For my setup; blichmann kettle, gravity feed and therminator, I’d probably be just as well off using a large hop sack vs using the hop blocker. I don’t regret buying it though since it’ll let me be lazy at when I don’t feel like using a hop bag or if I get concerned with hop utilization in the whirlpool or something like that.
Not the topic of the thread but the therminator is impressive. Way quicker cooling my beer and with quick connects (stainless cam locks) it is simple to hook up and clean.
