Beer Forum

I'm having an issue where my diverter/strainer assembly is getting clogged with hop material from using a whirlpool immersion chiller set-up. I've been using pellet hops and I suppose if I used leaf/plugs it wouldn't be an issue but I have a lot of pellets to go through so I need to figure out a workaround.

So far these are my options:
- Take out the strainer and just use the diverter plate
- Do the above and after whirlpooling, sanitize my arm and reach down, pull out the diverter, re-install the strainer and reinstall the whole assembly. This will catch up to me eventually though.
- Give up whirlpooling
- Create and alternate place to pull the wort from making a dip tube or something

Has anyone else had this issue?
This has really f-ed up my brew day since I've had this new kettle.

Paul

After whirlpooling, do you let your wort sit for 20-30 minutes for the hops to form the cone? Maybe you're pulling wort off too fast? I haven't gotten the screen for my Blichmann yet, but from what I've read you have to drain the kettle slowly to prevent the hops from getting sucked up.

Is this before or after you chill the wort? I have a friend who did several experiments using a home made hop stopper and he figured out that it was cold brake material stopping it up. I am building my system now and that is one of the things that I am not sure of how I want to set up.

Currently, when I whirlpool I pull from the outlet valve ( that has the strainer on it) and return in the kettle with a thing I fabricated out of copper. It IS pulling it too fast bc it's a pump and it's sucking it shut with hops. I'm all for letting it settle for 30 minutes and usually do when the whirl pool is done but that's sort of not the issue here.

The usual procedure I have used and seen other use calls for recirc-ing wort for the last 10 minutes of the boil to sanitize it, killing the flame and starting the chiller while the whirlpool is running. The movement in the kettle has let me go from 210 to under 100 in less than 4 minutes at times and should form a nice handy-dandy trub cone. If I'm brewing lager I switch to ice when my temp stops dropping. On my last kettle I didn't have a strainer so this was never an issue. I pulled very bright wort without a strainer and letting it settle so I suppose I could just go back to that method but it seems a shame when I already spent the money for this.

I think I've decided to fabricate an additional tube to draw the wort in from so that I can keep the strainer in. That idea occurred to me while I was doing the original post... That should work fine, no?

Thanks for all of the feedback,
Paul

pmanz wrote:So far these are my options:
...
- Do the above and after whirlpooling, sanitize my arm and reach down, pull out the diverter, re-install the strainer and reinstall the whole assembly. This will catch up to me eventually though.
...

Paul

Whoa, that's a balsy move. At least use one of those really long gloves that go up your arm. You know, the kind that farmers use when they are ... uh... checking the .... uh .... cow fetus?

I would just suggest to not use your screen in the boil - at least until you are done with your pellet inventory. If you get a good whirlpool going, wait 10 min or so for things to settle, and draw off slowly - then you should avoid most trub from going into your fermenter.


Mylo

Ah, yeah, with a pump that'll change things. Maybe you should make one of these?

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?s=&s ... &p=1375851

I had the same problem when I first got my Boilermaker. I emailed John Blichmann and he said pellet hops with a recirculating chiller will probably never work due to the screen plugging but he thought whole leaf would be fine. I prefer pellet hops so I just run it now with the diverter plate with the screen removed. Depending on the speed you runoff into the kettle after chilling it will suck some hops & trub around the diverter when you get down to the last gallon or so. You can either live with that or just brew an extra gallon to account for losses in the kettle.

pmanz wrote:I'm having an issue where my diverter/strainer assembly is getting clogged with hop material from using a whirlpool immersion chiller set-up.

I forgot to get the boil screen when I ordered my Boilermaker. Brew day was coming up, so I improvised.



This is some 1/2" OD soft copper tubing. It came on a 10' roll that was already the right diameter for the pot, and it's the same size as the Blichmann dip tube.



Cut, solder in the "T", elbow and outlet, slot with a hacksaw and you're done.

I used it with pellet hops one time. Some of the stuff got through, but it didn't clog.

Hit [RELOAD] if the pics don't come up.

My VSS-280 vacuum bagger arrived this week, and I'm bagging hops like mad.

Charlie