Has anybody ever tried using tea infusers with their hop additions? I was thinking about buying a few so when I do hop additions, I won’t have all the left over hop “junk” at the bottom of the boil kettle and have to worry about transferring said “junk” to the fermentor. Any thoughts or suggestions?
If hop ‘socks’ work, then I don’t see why a tea infuser wouldn’t.
Personally, I just toss it all in and strain everything through a kitchen strainer from the BK into the fermenter. Still get a pretty good trub layer, but no sweat, no foul.
I have some tea infusers, and rarely use them. You need big ones. 3-4 inches for typical additions of up to an ounce of hops. They do cut down a bit on the debris doing into the fermenter, but lots of other techniques do too, I usually use a strainer which also removes debris AND helps aerate.
I use the tea balls when I really don’t want hop debris, say when I’m planning on re-pitching the yeast. I recently made a 3-gallon patersbier with the intention of reusing the yeast in a 5-gallon tripel. There were only 2 small additions of only 0.25oz each, and I also strained the wort. I did not whirlpool. When I finally transferred the patersbier into the keg as I was brewing my tripel, the remaining cake was beautiful. It just looked like a giant vial of yeast, no hop debris that I could see.
For most brews, I think a whirlpool or a strainer does well enough, especially when coupled with good racking technique, to keep hops out of the bottles or keg.
Do you need them? No, but I f you want them, get them.
I use tea balls in the keg. They work good for that, BUT, don’t try put as much hops in there as will fill it… be sparing… maybe 1/2 full a bit over… Pellets DO swell. As far as whilst fermenting… no problem there with just tossing them in… unencumbered… I do chill in the primary and so much stuff, best know as trub, falls to the bottom… so rack carefully… Attention to details is the best advice you can get… Sneezles61
I use them all of the time to dry hop in the keg. Easy clean up and they don’t get sucked into the dip tube like muslin bags. Just talking about them yesterday. Don’t buy the cheap $5 spice/tea balls. The metal rivet on the clasp corrodes and it falls off. For hop additions in the kettle the muslin bags are easy and cheap enough to just toss after.
Like @sneezles61 said, pellets swell up so don’t stuff the tea ball and it will work fine.
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