Blockages

[Griff097]

Many thanks @LisaMC also can this machine do a whirlpool ?

Sorry for all the questions !

You can buy a whirlpool arm that the pump recirculates through or put your mash paddle in an electric drill and do it that way.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

Yes that’s a very efficient method with the drill but it involves effort and I don’t do effort

 

[An Ankoù]

Yes that’s a very efficient method with the drill but it involves effort and I don’t do effort

Nah, the drill thing is the lazy way. The effort way involves stirring the batch anticlockwise with a paddle for 20 minutes. If you find your batch is a bit overlength at the end, it's probably due to sweat and perspiration. The long and the short of it is: I don't do whirlpools.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

If you were making a gose you could skip the salt addition then

 

[An Ankoù]

If you were making a gose you could skip the salt addition then

Now you're talking!
Best thing to do with gose is let it turn to vinegar and sprinkle it on your chips. Two birds with one stone.

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

They’ll have to be celeriac chips

 

[Wynne]

I'm rather looking forward to a solution here. I purchased a helix a while ago in a bit of excess Aliexpress shopping... and then couldn't work out how to fit it without lots of other bits to connect it to the tap. I never thought of connecting it to the pump drain.

I replaced the T on mine with a 90 degree bend on one end and a blanking piece on the other. This gives it a lower profile and enables the helix to be arranges in a spiral. I don’t use a false bottom as well and it works fine with both whole and pellet hops.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

@private4587

What I can tell you is - the 10mm barb doesn't fit. The 8mm barb fits but it jiggles about inside. Something in between would be ideal but I don't think they sell that size. I do think it'll help a little with the remnants of the hops but I wouldn't have said it will eliminate the whole problem as the barb is not a tight fit.

The false bottom does sit on top of it but it's rickety, because the tee piece sticks up a little bit too far. I will manage though I think. The malt pipe will sit flat on top of it, so as long as you don't knock it, it should be ok. Having said that, there's the weight of the grain and water to consider.

Will have to wait and see. I'd deffo go with whole hops for the boil and pellets for the dry hopping if required.

Hi Lisa - I think I might have suggested stretching a bit of silicone hose over the 8mm barb; that should make it fit without leaking, and avoid it coming loose?

 

[Tess Tickle's Brewery]

TETB I've slept since then

 

[Hop_it]

You can buy a whirlpool arm that the pump recirculates through or put your mash paddle in an electric drill and do it that way.

I bought the BZ whirlpool arm when I got my BZ a couple of years ago. The first thing to say is that they don't work very well. The pump does not have enough oomph to get the whole mass of liquid moving. I tried bushing it down with a short length of silicon tube on the end connected to another short length of rigid pipe with a smaller inside diameter to increase the intensity of the liquid flow. This helped a bit, but the whirlpool action was still pretty feeble. So, I've come to the conclusion the manual stirring, or with the aid of a low speed electric drill are probably the best options if you feel the need to whirlpool hop . . . . I rarely bother these days.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

@Hop_it
Trouble with the whirlpool arm is as you say pump a bit feeble on the small brewzilla, also it has to pump the wort up then down and it disrupts the whirlpool as it runs up and down the side of the kettle. Also not such a good whirlpool if you use the immersion chiller.
I attached an elbow and an 8mm diameter stainless tube to the thread on the inside of the tap ( in the kettle ) and then attach the recirc tube to the outflow of the tap via the coolossus this manages to make an effective whirlpool but is with the guten 70 which has a bigger pump.
Might be worth a try direct to the tap if you are going to whirlpool.

 

[DocAnna]

On the small scale of a domestic all in one system there seem to be very few benefits of a whirlpool, which is simply a hop stand with a bit more effort. The accretion of hops into a central cone while appearing quite neat has very limited if any merit at this scale as the total quantity of hop and cold break debris in a cone or just flat against the base is not going to affect the draw off points due to their positioning. Many of the merits of whirlpooling are attributed to faster cooling which is also less relevant at a domestic scale, and not at all if using a plate or counterflow chiller. It would be interesting to see any comparative experience or argument for whirlpool vs hopstand with the occasional stir as I can't see the benefit at our homebrew scale.

 

[Hop_it]

On the small scale of a domestic all in one system there seem to be very few benefits of a whirlpool, which is simply a hop stand with a bit more effort. The accretion of hops into a central cone while appearing quite neat has very limited if any merit at this scale as the total quantity of hop and cold break debris in a cone or just flat against the base is not going to affect the draw off points due to their positioning. Many of the merits of whirlpooling are attributed to faster cooling which is also less relevant at a domestic scale, and not at all if using a plate or counterflow chiller. It would be interesting to see any comparative experience or argument for whirlpool vs hopstand with the occasional stir as I can't see the benefit at our homebrew scale.

I totally agree w.r.t. the relevance of creating the classic central cone of hops and trub at the homebrew scale. However, I always had the feeling that the constant gentle circulation might just help the extract a bit more goodness from the late addition hops, as does stirring a pot of tea. And clearly there is the benefit of faster cooling by keeping the wort moving if like me you use a coil immersion chiller, but as RoomWithABrew mentions above you need a powerful pump, particularly when the chiller coil is in the vessel.
I now use a hop-stand with an occasional stir, and this seems to work ok for me. But like you I would be curious to see the results of a controlled experiment done on the same or similar all-in-one equipment.

 

[Wynne]

I totally agree w.r.t. the relevance of creating the classic central cone of hops and trub at the homebrew scale. However, I always had the feeling that the constant gentle circulation might just help the extract a bit more goodness from the late addition hops, as does stirring a pot of tea. And clearly there is the benefit of faster cooling by keeping the wort moving if like me you use a coil immersion chiller, but as RoomWithABrew mentions above you need a powerful pump, particularly when the chiller coil is in the vessel.
I now use a hop-stand with an occasional stir, and this seems to work ok for me. But like you I would be curious to see the results of a controlled experiment done on the same or similar all-in-one equipment.

I too am a fan of a post-boil hopstand but I’m wondering whether using a Hop Rocket full of whole hops immediately prior to my plate chiller is a quicker and more effective way to capture and retain hop flavour compounds in the wort. I’ve tried it once - it worked seemed to work well but required the use of a pump as I didn’t have sufficient height/head to cope with both Hop Rocket and chiller then fill the fermenter using gravity alone in a single pass.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I've just ordered the hop rocket partly to catch hot break that is too fine for the trub trap. I will give it a go as an inline hopback but the counterflow chiller is pretty effective so the wort going thru it if recirculating would be on a cooling delta.
I'll see how the guten 70 pump copes with that inline as well and update in a few weeks.

 

[Mash Monster]

I've just ordered the hop rocket partly to catch hot break that is too fine for the trub trap. I will give it a go as an inline hopback but the counterflow chiller is pretty effective so the wort going thru it if recirculating would be on a cooling delta.
I'll see how the guten 70 pump copes with that inline as well and update in a few weeks.

I use my hop missile all the time for flame out hops I put the hops in a hop sock with rice hulls This has the added bonus of catching a lot of suspended crap as it’s pumped through the the hop missile It seems to work for me
good luck

 

[Wynne]

I use my hop missile all the time for flame out hops I put the hops in a hop sock with rice hulls This has the added bonus of catching a lot of suspended crap as it’s pumped through the the hop missile It seems to work for me
good luck

Thanks @Mash Monster. Do you use whole hops only or does adding rice hulls and using a hop sock enable you to use pellet hops too? Where do you get your r8ce hulls? When I’ve seen them they’ve struck me as expensive for a consumable.

 

[Mash Monster]

Thanks @Mash Monster. Do you use whole hops only or does adding rice hulls and using a hop sock enable you to use pellet hops too? Where do you get your r8ce hulls? When I’ve seen them they’ve struck me as expensive for a consumable.

Hi Wynne
I use both pellets and hops in a hop sock I bought my hulls from MM I think they are listed as Oat Husks and are about £2.50 / kilo and they weigh very little so you get a lot for your money

 

[Mash Monster]

There is a YouTube video by David Heath about the hop missile I can’t seem to post the link I’m sure you can find it quite easily

 

[Hop_it]

Thanks @Mash Monster. Do you use whole hops only or does adding rice hulls and using a hop sock enable you to use pellet hops too? Where do you get your r8ce hulls? When I’ve seen them they’ve struck me as expensive for a consumable.

I'd never thought to use them like this before. It's an interesting idea
Anyway, most of the on-line homebrew suppliers seem to sell rice hulls. I bought my last lot from GEB. They are not as costly to use as they may appear because you get a hell of a lot in a 1kg bag, so they go a long way. And I don't suppose that you would need more than a handful using them like this.
PS - I would advise anyone using rice hulls to rinse them with boiling water first, and drain them through a wire kitchen sieve. I noticed a lot of brown discolouration in the water, which I decided was not something that I wanted in my beer