Leaf v Pellet Hops.

[Dads_Ale]

A lot depend on your equipment. You tend to need different filters/methods for leaf and pellets.

Leaf is pretty easy as something like a bazooka filter works really well and the hops themselves will act as a filter bed.
Pellets are very different and will either go straight through a filter or block it quickly. You can use a fine mesh hop spider but they still clog the mesh and I'm not convinced you then get full utilisation.

How you deal with pellets will depend on your boiler.

On my 50l pot I can simple do a quick whirlpool with a spoon and the hop debris settles (I allow 20 mins) in a nice cone at the bottom (this boiler is fairly wide). The wort can then be drained via the tap although you have to be careful with the last bit and keep an eye on proceedings if you tip the boiler to get every bit out as the cone can break up. I also use a fine mesh keg hopper from tap to fv to catch stragglers.

On my smaller (narrower) Klarstein unit, it isn't wide enough to get a decent cone (it nearly does it but breaks up quicker) so I employ a Trub Trapper to separate 90% of the hop debris. There is still some on the outside of the Trub Trapper so again I use the keg hopper to filter this out. For low hopped beers I dont bother with the Trub Trapper (as it is a pain to clean) and just leave them to settle out below tap level and use the keg hopper.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

A Trub Trapper!
That's cool.

 

[Cwrw666]

Leaf hops during the boil, as they form a filter bed to strain the wort.

Same here. I find pellets totally block the filter on my boiler. Used them recently though in a bag and that worked ok - beer's still fermenting so I don't know if the bag interfered with extraction yet.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I use both and as said you get more taste from Hop pellets IMO but I think that I have read that you can get more bitterness from hop pellets compared to leaf as the hop has been crushed and exposes more of the hop thus giving more bitterness

^^ what he said :-)

 

[chthon]

As gets clear from the answers, you should choose based upon your process. For some people, leaf hops work better in the whirlpool, my experience is that you probably need a volume of at least 20 l for this to work well. With my 10l setup, I do not get a hop cone.

I use pellets because I now always ferment in my brew kettle. Pellets stay better on the bottom, leaf hops float because of CO2 capture. When I rack after five days into a closed fermentation vessel, the trub is compacted by the yeast.

 

[moto748]

Same here. I find pellets totally block the filter on my boiler. Used them recently though in a bag and that worked ok - beer's still fermenting so I don't know if the bag interfered with extraction yet.

I bag all my hops, so I don't see that it makes much different to me whether they are leaf or pellets. In fact, the most time-consuming of my clean-up operations after a brew is probably bag-washing!

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Now the next question - dry hopping!
I would assume pellets are best for dry hopping as they break up nicely and, presumably, release all their aroma better?

 

[Galena]

Now the next question - dry hopping!
I would assume pellets are best for dry hopping as they break up nicely and, presumably, release all their aroma better?

Well, you say that but if you chuck pellets into the FV then you have the problem of filtering them out before bottling/kegging. If you bag them first then you are probably losing some of the aroma? With leaf hops, if you chuck them in then filtering is not an issue but they just float on the top so no doubt you are losing potential here and bagging them gives the same issue as pellets.
Personally I avoid dry hopping on most of my beers preferring to go for a hopstand addition for aroma.