home made hop back

[barls]

In general it looks good.

1) Keep it simple. Do you REALLY need to have a conical end? Would a flat end work well enough that you won't need to have a special cone end made up for it? no it doesnt. its just how i drew it late one night. hence why im here asking for feedback on the design

2) Would it make more sense to side-feed it on both ends? How will you stand it up so that it will draw out of the conical end? At those dimensions, given the need for a valve of some sort and the other plumbing, how long will the feet need to be in order to stand it up so that the conical shape will work? it probably will need a valve on the output. the design is so it just plugs straight in to my kettle outlet and plug the hose straight in to it. so its supported by the outlet from the kettle. no need for legs

2) Think about how you might be able to get double duty out of it as both a hopback and as something else useful in your brewery -- maybe as a grant? i didnt know what this was until i looked it up a moment ago. this is a possibility now that i know what they are.

3) Keep in mind how easy/hard it would be to clean as well. it most likely would get cleaned the same way as my kegs by being soaked in something and being 15cm wide i can get my hand inside

I'd consider screw threads on both ends and pipe through the sides on both ends.

My .02-

ive added my replies to your points above.

tasty thats what exactly what im trying to build. do you have a screen in the base of it or is just the fittings.
mr x if you have a look at the link in my original post, that is the most common type ive come accross. heres the link to the aussie homebrewer thread
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... hl=hopback

[TastyMcD]

Now dat'a a maaun! Nice kettle, bro! Looks like you need a bigger mash tun and/or HLT.

ARF!


Mylo

Not much gets by you Mylo. I AM constrained by that mash tun. I can mash about 34 pounds of grain and that gets me to about 1.075 or so before I have to double mash or use extract. But it's my baby and I expect I'm not going to ever get a B3 system. It's a Heineken keg and slightly smaller than a US half barrel but about 20% thicker stainless. I have a bottom drain that runs across the bottom and feeds through the collar. It's direct fired with a 30,000 BTU automatic burner that I've got turned down to about 10,000 BTU. I recirc during the entire mash and do at least one rise to a mashout temp.

I've since bought (well sorta...B3 and I go way back) a new 26 gallon heavy duty boil kettle and that thin wall kettle in the foreground became my 26 gallon HLT.

Not the best system but the beer is made in the ferment anyway.

Tasty

[TastyMcD]

.....tasty thats what exactly what im trying to build. do you have a screen in the base of it or is just the fittings.

A false bottom sits about 1.5 cm above the base. You may not be able to tell from the picture but the perforated stainless circle has three stainless legs I made with stainless nuts and bolts. I put the hops in a hopsack. My March pump is on the output side of my therminator (chiller) and the hopback is on the input side. The hops are actually pulled down onto the false bottom by the pump forming a fairly dense "trub filter". That and a good whirpool and my wort's cleaner than I am.

Tasty

[mr x]

mr x if you have a look at the link in my original post, that is the most common type ive come accross. heres the link to the aussie homebrewer thread
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/i ... hl=hopback

Yeah, that'll work too. I like the mason jar because it's easy/cheap to build, I can see inside, and I can change the size of the jar.

[barls]

.....tasty thats what exactly what im trying to build. do you have a screen in the base of it or is just the fittings.

A false bottom sits about 1.5 cm above the base. You may not be able to tell from the picture but the perforated stainless circle has three stainless legs I made with stainless nuts and bolts. I put the hops in a hopsack. My March pump is on the output side of my therminator (chiller) and the hopback is on the input side. The hops are actually pulled down onto the false bottom by the pump forming a fairly dense "trub filter". That and a good whirpool and my wort's cleaner than I am.

Tasty

cheers mate i was just sitting here thinking that if the screen wasnt fixed i could take it out to clean. do you have a valve that can limit flow or is it straight through?
also how well does the lid seal with that style of clip?
i could also do the top with 3 to 4 screw down bolts clamping down on the seal.

[TastyMcD]

......do you have a valve that can limit flow or is it straight through?
also how well does the lid seal with that style of clip?

Yes, a valve limits the flow on the outbound side. Actually the valve is on the output side of my march pump whose input side is my therminator whose input side is my hopback whose input side is my boil kettle.

The lid seals air tight but a better (softer) gasket material would require less pressure from the screw. I made the clamp from some 1 inch by 1 inch square steel on which I used my bench grinder to grind out the center and a power drill attached file to grind out the ends.

Tasty