As posted previously, I have been experimenting with the coil spring hop filter from AliExpress. I discarded the supplied Tee piece immediately, as it is too bulky. It would be fine if attached to the boiler tap, but, like some others, I want to use the coil as a filter on the pump inlet on my Brew Monk (similar to Brew Devil, Klarstein etc.). If used vertically with a hose barb the Tee is far too high above the boiler bottom. If used flat with a right angled barb the Tee takes up too much space and intrudes on the part of the boiler base where the element is.
I first tried using a right angled barb attached to one end of the coil with a stop end on the other. This was difficult to manage in the boiler (think Slinky) and it restricted the pump flow, as well as being prone to airlocks in the pump inlet.
I then made up the adapter shown from a 1/2" BSP threaded SS full socket, drilled to take a short piece of 10mm SS tube, which is welded in place (no comments on my welding skills, please!). I also shortened the filter coil by about 10cm so that it fits neatly abound the edge of the boiler base (I reckoned that compressing the spring to fit in its original length would tend to close the space between the coils and reduce flow). The coil now sits flat on the base of the boiler along its whole length.
I used this for a brew yesterday without the usual false bottom in place. The boil used 45g of leaf hops and 30g of pellets, all of which were just added to the boiler (no hop spider or any other filter). After the boil the wort was whirlpooled for ten minutes and then pumped through my hop missile and plate chiller straight into the fermenter.
Some observations:
I still had some airlocks in the pump inlet - I may cut a couple of very thin slots in the top of the connector to see if this alleviates the problem. As it is, the pump does eventually pick up, but I am a bit worried about damaging it through cavitation or running too dry.
The flow was good, even through the hop missile, and there was no hint of blockages.
The wort was very clear
When cleaning up I found no trace of hop material in the plate chiller or the Brew Monk pump, which I always get using just the false bottom, even when using leaf hops alone.
So this seems to be working well, apart from the tendency for airlocks in the pump inlet. My next brew will be with pellet hops only. I will report how it goes.