Beer Forum

Hi All,

I tried out a new (I think) idea when I brewed today. Wanted to see if this of use to people and submit it to the Gadget page if it's something new.

A while back I found a massive roll of stainless steel screen at work and, er, took some. Apart from a new manifold/false bottom I'm working on with it (coming soon), I decided to use some in the boil kettle to help catch hops and trub during the whirlpool. I cut a piece of screen about 2" wide and 24" long, secured it in a ring shape with an office clip, and dropped it into the kettle with the rest of my whirlpool setup. Just that easy. Even Justin could do this. After I transferred the beer, there was about a 3/4" cake of trub standing in the ring, that hardly went anywhere during transfer or when I was moving things around for some pictures afterwards. This was a 6 gallon batch of ~1.040 wort with about 2 ounces of pellet hops, so not that much hops or protein break. For bigger and more hoppy beers, I'm sure a wider ring could be made and dropped in later in the whirlpool, but before the immersion chiller is cooling things down.

I'm not sure if it makes a big difference, but my whirlpool is set up to draw from the bottom of the kettle. It sort of vacuums out the area outside the ring, and shoots it back in higher up in the kettle. That might make a difference in how well the ring world work in other peoples' setups. Anyhow, I think it's a nice alternative to welding in a diverter plate, since I'm avoiding spending money on anything I can't use when I step up to a 10 gallon system.

I'm brewing Tasty's brown ale next week and I'll try this again with bigger wort and even more hops...

Whirlpool setup with ring.


Even with the kettle tilted, things stay in place.


Trub cake after pulling off the ring. On the left edge you can see it's about 3/4" thick and still stickin'.


The ring after its maiden voyage.

Nice idea. this is a stainless big mesh filter that the industrial guys use, but contained in the pot vs. going outside of the kettle to do the filtering. Those systems runs about $500-1000, and most of the time do not have much particle containment volume. Good job! I love the invovation of Home Brewers - Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

...Necessity - and finding sweet stuff to nab at work!

Thanks.

Wow, man, that just seems too easy! This is a little invention worthy of Macgyver! Now, to get myself some SS mesh...

Cool, post more updates after your higher hopped brew!

You mention that you've got a recirculation look for your whirlpool, and I'm sure you're right when you say that positively affects your catcher's performance. For people without a look and just using the paddle method I imagine it would help to slightly angle the walls of the catcher, so that it slops inward on the top and outward on the bottom. I haven't tested the viability of this idea yet, but other than potentially snaring some debris on the outside of the catcher I don't see why it shouldn't work at funneling the break into the trap volume.

Great photos/write up, I'll have to see how well I can make up one of my own.

Hey monstersandpie,
that office clip is just a piece of spring steel. You really don't want that in your wort; iron can give off tastes. Unravel a piece of the stainless wire from another piece of that mesh and sorta sew the ends together with that. Or use a piece of copper wire.

Alemental wrote:Hey monstersandpie,
that office clip is just a piece of spring steel. You really don't want that in your wort; iron can give off tastes. Unravel a piece of the stainless wire from another piece of that mesh and sorta sew the ends together with that. Or use a piece of copper wire.

+1, or even just crimp the mesh onto itself