Hi All,
I’m in the process of getting my first plate chiller. I’ve read about hop pellets and debris clogging the chiller. I generally use hop pellets. The plate chiller will be gravity fed for now.
My plan was to place all hop pellets in hop bags in the boil kettle.
Do I need additional filtration prior to sending the wort through the chiller? What do you experienced plate chillers use to prevent clogging your chiller?
thanks
Kent
People seem to like their hops spiders. There are a lot of versions out there.
My kettle false bottom does an excellent job of filtering so I don’t really worry about it and just toss my hops in free range style. I do not use a plate chiller however.
I use a plate chiller and put my hops in paint strainer bags in the boil. Never had an issue with hops in the chiller. The bags are cheap and last quite a long time. I like the 5 gallon bags because they’re big enough to allow more wort in and kind of billow out when attached to the kettle brim. Some guys say they increase their hops by 10% or so when they bag them. I don’t think it makes a difference.
I’m not sure a hop spider would give you as high a level of filtration as the bags but if you rinse your chiller in both directions after use a spider should work quite well and be a little more elegant if you care about that…haha.
