DIY hop filter

[clarkeuk]

ok peeps
going to have a go at making mi sen a hop filter for my peco boiler whats your thoughts

(1) do I try to get it as low as possible in the boiler or do i leave some dead space and if so how much

(2)drill or slots in the pipe

(3) shape

( 4) what have you done ( feel free to share your photos :):thumb: )

my thoughts are to make as big as possible , drill holes all round and keep of the bottom leaving at least 3 liters dead space , but I know absolutely feck all :grin:

 

[Smileyr8]

Use a hop spider and bag its a lot less messy.

 

[Tony1951]

There is a mesh filter about 1cm off the bottom of my ACE boiler and it is constantly clogging up with break and hop material. Lately I've had to just bale the boiler out with a pan and brew up the lot, wort, trub and hops. This has been ok and the beer is good, BUT the low position puts the filter right in the heart of the solid material at the bottom of the boiler and is just asking for it to clog. I'd put it further up than that if I was you. If you want to recover liquor from the dead space you can always tip the boiler forward so it flows out of the tube after draining the bulk of the wort off.

 

[keat64]

I have the ace still with the standard tap.
I just lob the hop pellets in.
The only clog I've had is when I get down to the last inch.

 

[Tony1951]

I have the ace still with the standard tap.
I just lob the hop pellets in.
The only clog I've had is when I get down to the last inch.

I must be doing something different. The only thing I can think of is that I am doing big gravity beers having used 6.150 kg of grain. Maybe that makes more trub or something. Anyway - I manage fine with my work arounds. It passes through the mash fine even when I mash directly in the boiler without a bag. It only happens after the boil that I get the blocks. Probably gelatinised trub after putting in protfloc - who knows. When it happens now I just bale the boiler into the FV with a pan. Beer comes out great. Nobody drinking it complains. :)

 

[TartanSpecial]

this is mine..a long bazooka filter with a barb which slots/jams into the tap hole. Works for me...need to tilt the kettle to get the last couple of litres out. Only issues I've ever had is when I used hop pellets rather than leaf hops, and there was clogging toward the end due to the hop pellet debris combining with the protein break material ...needed to scrape the filter every 20 seconds to allow the flow to continue. No problems with leaf hops. (This is a brewferm 27ltr kettle)

 

[airymary]

I use a homemade hop filter, configured after quite a bit of trial and error. Boiler ball valve has a short stub of 15mm copper pipe going into the the wort. A copper Tee

is lightly kissed with a hammer to make it a stiff push fit
A copper elbow goes on each end

Enough wire mesh tube is fitted to the elbows with a s/s hose clip to allow the mesh to fit right around the perimeter of the boiler.

http://www.wireandstuff.co.uk/products/Knitted-Wire-Mesh.html

The elbows also push fit onto the Tee, and are turned to the bottom of the boiler, giving 3 or 4mm clearance.

It doesn't clog, there's no prob with excess trub, is easily dismantled for cleaning, and leaves 1 to 2L in the dead space of a 60L boiler. Works for me.
Cheers,

Chris

 

[clarkeuk]

Cheers guys for the help.will post my creation when done 😆

 

[ManseMasher]

https://www.bes.co.uk/products/095a.asp#8103

I use one of these. I cut the opposite end to the 90° bend off, took out the rubber inner, closed the open end off with a jubilee clip, screwed the 90° end onto the boiler tap. Bend keeps the filter on the bottom of the boiler. Not clogged yet, and the syphon action pretty much empties the boiler completely.

 

[clarkeuk]

Well this is what iv bodged up
Made it so it filters from different levels .
yet to try it out though

 

[BREWERS DROOP]

I use a homemade hop filter, configured after quite a bit of trial and error. Boiler ball valve has a short stub of 15mm copper pipe going into the the wort. A copper Tee

is lightly kissed with a hammer to make it a stiff push fit
A copper elbow goes on each end

Enough wire mesh tube is fitted to the elbows with a s/s hose clip to allow the mesh to fit right around the perimeter of the boiler.

http://www.wireandstuff.co.uk/products/Knitted-Wire-Mesh.html

The elbows also push fit onto the Tee, and are turned to the bottom of the boiler, giving 3 or 4mm clearance.

It doesn't clog, there's no prob with excess trub, is easily dismantled for cleaning, and leaves 1 to 2L in the dead space of a 60L boiler. Works for me.
Cheers,

Chris

Just ordered some of that wire,better than the braided stripped out hose by the sound of it.

 

[airymary]

I ordered 3m of it yesterday. The mesh will deteriorate and discolour, so I replace it every year or so. I have quite a wide ø boiler, so, to go right round the perimeter, 3m gives me current and next year's replacement mesh.

I checked my dead space after my last brewday. Boiler looks pretty empty, but there's about 0.8L left (plus what the hops absorb, of course). Still, not bad for a boiler that's wider than it is high.

I also understand that the mesh on the hose connectors has some form of coating, which is why I prefer the Mesh co's offering.
Cheers,
Chris

 

[brumbrew]

I tried making a mesh hop filter. From scrap and things I can get for free of course.

Settled with a copper 90 dropped in the bottom of the boiler and just inserting one of those frying splatter mesh things.

The 90 bend just serves as a weight to get the hop/frying pan splatter guard off the bottom of the boiler.

Of course, all my gear is home made and cost me pennies and a few bottles of beer

;-)

 

[Notlaw]

I tried making a mesh hop filter. From scrap and things I can get for free of course.

Settled with a copper 90 dropped in the bottom of the boiler and just inserting one of those frying splatter mesh things.

The 90 bend just serves as a weight to get the hop/frying pan splatter guard off the bottom of the boiler.

Of course, all my gear is home made and cost me pennies and a few bottles of beer

;-)

I like doing things on the cheap / re-purposing stuff. As much as I'd love to go out and buy some sparkly new gear (and I'm sure at some point, I will) for the time being, I'm liking the "cobbled together" approach.

 

[airymary]

I like doing things on the cheap / re-purposing stuff. As much as I'd love to go out and buy some sparkly new gear (and I'm sure at some point, I will) for the time being, I'm liking the "cobbled together" approach.

Well, I don't think 10 or 12 quid for one of these is too extravagant:

But if it sticks out the back of the boiler valve well clear of the bottom, and leaves 4 or 5 litres behind, that's a no no. So is 50 or 60 quid on a false bottom. I prefer to cobble together my own effort, which costs less than either of the 'off the peg' alternatives, and does at least as good a job. Horses for courses...
Cheers,
Chris

 

[Fil]

fwiw i played with the memory wire tube, and then a long length of SS 22mm overbraid, then the overbraid over the memory wire tube.. it worked OK,

I also made a garth style filter from 2 x SS mesh splatter guards from the £shop.. carefully pull the handles from both, and prise open the crimped on edge of one guard to remove it.

a length of split beerline can then be used to pinch the unedged mesh to the edged mesh pop a street elbow thru one sheet of mesh cut a cross with scissors and secure with a locknut and 2 x m20 SS washers..

cleaning was a PITA, hop debris gets trapped in the mesh, and break/flour gets trapped in the braid needing a few rinse dry flex cycles..

Now i use a hop spider diy copper tube frame and grain bag, using a solar pump on the kettle drain i pump the boil out and back in and through the hop bag with an aim to maximise the hop utilisation.. it works..:)

by far the best option for me, the grain bag mesh is too fine to trap twiglets and can sustain a rough rinse in warm water to clear.

Best of all i have zero drain concerns, nothing to clog just a deposit of a mm or so of break material.. so can aim for zero deadspace from the kettle..

 

[airymary]

That's a whole series of ingenious filtration solutions Fil. Yep, cleaning hop debris off mesh can be a PITA. My memory mesh filter gets an initial rinse/brush/shake, then is left to dry. The dry fragments are then fairly easy to brush off (using a dedicated toothbrush from a pound shop multi-pack). A larger area of mesh, like your spatter guard, could use the same method, but with a bigger brush!
Cheers,
Chris

 

[Tony1951]

I'm sure I saw one of these on Star Trek once. I think it was some sort of transporter device..... :)

Looks complicated but if you are getting full run off with minimal waste it must be working great. I need to do something about how my boiler drains.... Sometimes it just won't and I have to bale the bloody thing out with a pan. The beer works great though even with it fermenting on an inch and half of trub. There is no effect at all on flavour except it is a bit more hoppy if I leave the late hops in.