Wort not draining

[suffolkbeer]

Completed my first 'all grain' brew last night and it's now in the fv!
My only real problem was when draining the wort from the boiler to the fv, there seemed to be a lot of liquid lost at that stage. Well not lost really but remaining in the boiler blocked from draining by hops etc.
The hop strainer in my boiler is a copper tube with lots of holes in it, is this a problem or is it just the way it goes?

 

[Sbond10]

A silicone hose on the tap dropping below the level of the boiler may help to create a spython affect. Tho slow n steady helps create a nice filter imo

 

[Cwrw666]

My boiler has a mesh hop filter and it still blocks up with some beers. Basically if there's lots of hops in the recipe the hops hold back the hot break gunge and keep it from blocking the filter. If there's very little hops then the filter blocks up almost immediately. You can often keep the beer flowing by continually scraping the filter with a long brewing spoon (I use a strip of aluminium I got from B&Q). Worst beer for blocking I've ever brewed was the Greg Hughes recipe for honey ale - hardly any hops at all and I could barely get anything out of the tap. Ended up using a syphon tube to suck the ale out, but if I hadn't got one I could have always just tipped the wort out of the boiler into the FV. It doesn't seem to matter if you get hop debrit / hot break gunge into the FV, so it's not the end of the world.

 

[JapanBrew]

I have a 90 degree dip tube near the edge of the boiler. But at the last 8 minutes of the boil, I run the boiling wort through my plate chiller and back into the boiler. The return end is angled to form a whirlpool effect. This will eventually collect all the proteins and any hop debris that made it through the hop spider. It really works well.
A substitute for this, which I had done for a year or so, is the have a sanitized large spoon. At flameout give the wort a really good stir and let it be for 10 minutes. This will do the same effect.

 

[foxy]

I use the spring spiral,best piece of equipment for filtering the wort, can put the hop pellets into the mix without a sock or spider.
The sock in the photo is a 400 micron and that was the only debris it caught, the wort in the glass is from the final runnings.

 

[Fore]

+1 slow and steady. When I started, I had read that it's best to open the tap full. But that doesn't work for me. And I don't think it's surprising, as all you achieve with more speed is to pull more of the trub over the filter holes. Counter productive.

 

[suffolkbeer]

Looks great! Did you make the spiral yourself or is it something that I can buy from somewhere??

 

[foxy]

Looks great! Did you make the spiral yourself or is it something that I can buy from somewhere??

£20 for one meter including a silicone washer and a 1/2 inch BSP elbow in 304 stainless steel, that one I made to fit the Braumeister using copper capillary fittings, but can be made to fit any kettle.