A Crazy Idea For Trub/hop Separation In The Kettle

[kram]

Ah thanks for clarifying, looks like you've got it covered.

 

[Tony]

I just use a false battom. ITs only kight guage. I tried it in the mash and it buckled.

So i tried it in the kettle to see if it would hold pellets, and it does. I drain slowly by only cracking the tap.

I get maybe 10% of the hops and break in the cube...... some at the start and a bit at the end

And i get every last drop!

Im thinking of taking my old 18 gallon keg with the "grand canyon" bottom to an engineering shop to have a nice curved base welded into it so i can do the same in it as well.

cheers

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Dammit Tony - You are just rubbing it in there. Why does that sort of stuff work for other people. Every time I have tried a filter screen, false bottom.. anything like that, it either clogs almost immediately and nothing gets through, or it lets so much trub through that its not worth the bother.

Must be just me and my mechanical ineptitude.... bugger it.

TB

 

[shandy]

I just use a false battom. ITs only kight guage. I tried it in the mash and it buckled.

So i tried it in the kettle to see if it would hold pellets, and it does. I drain slowly by only cracking the tap.

I get maybe 10% of the hops and break in the cube...... some at the start and a bit at the end

And i get every last drop!

Im thinking of taking my old 18 gallon keg with the "grand canyon" bottom to an engineering shop to have a nice curved base welded into it so i can do the same in it as well.

cheers

What's the diameter of the perforations in that false bottom Tony? Pumpy reckons the one he has stops the lot and I'm leaning towards the false bottom solution myself but you're getting some hops and break through yours so I'm wondering what the difference is.

 

[Tony]

The holes are roughly 1.75 to 2 mm.

Yeah i get a bit through, but its only a tad. maybe 5g out of 100g of hops....... bugger all really. And it makes no real difference to the beer.

The upside is i recover every drop of wort from the kettle.

I turn off the gas and direct a fan on the base of the kettle (while its still sitting on its stand over the burner) to cool the rim of the converted "vessel". I let it cool for 10 min and lift it up on the bench. A quick stir to form a rough wirlpool, let it settle for 5 min and start draining.

The trick is to get it running with a full tube without fast flow. I let it run out slowly by just cracking the outlet valve and pinching the tube about half way down so it fills with wort. When its full from the pinch to the top i let it go slowly so it runs out and pushes all the air out. You will get a bit of hops that was under the FB but within a few seconds it runns clear till the end.

A slow flow, taking 5 min to fill a 25 liter cube will see it stay clear.

Patience grasshopper, patience!

cheers

 

[shandy]

The holes are roughly 1.75 to 2 mm.

Yeah i get a bit through, but its only a tad. maybe 5g out of 100g of hops....... bugger all really. And it makes no real difference to the beer.

The upside is i recover every drop of wort from the kettle.

I turn off the gas and direct a fan on the base of the kettle (while its still sitting on its stand over the burner) to cool the rim of the converted "vessel". I let it cool for 10 min and lift it up on the bench. A quick stir to form a rough wirlpool, let it settle for 5 min and start draining.

The trick is to get it running with a full tube without fast flow. I let it run out slowly by just cracking the outlet valve and pinching the tube about half way down so it fills with wort. When its full from the pinch to the top i let it go slowly so it runs out and pushes all the air out. You will get a bit of hops that was under the FB but within a few seconds it runns clear till the end.

A slow flow, taking 5 min to fill a 25 liter cube will see it stay clear.

Patience grasshopper, patience!

cheers

Sounds pretty good. Since I chill I'd be hoping that the hop bed would create a filter for the break material too. If it works and it only pulls the unwanted that's under the FB I could be sold on it.

 

[Tony]

Well thats my plan for the 18 galloong keg kettle.

The hops will sink faster to form a filter bed for the break

I do this currently witrh a dodgy SS mesh FB and it works to a point but a large surface area FB would work much much better.

As you can see the FB above is much more efficient. The dodgy mesh one is all i can fit tin the rotton odd shaped base of the 18 gallon keg and i get more hops and break in the fermenter. Still doesnt make any difference as it sinks and the beer is racked off it when done. Also loose a liter or 2 in the kettle as it blocks and sucks air at the end before it can slowly drain through.

Surface area is the key i think...... size does matter

cheers

 

[rich_lamb]

Yeah, Thirsty has the truth of it - it looks like a nice simple solution (how can it possibly work so well!); if the gravel doesn't work I'm going to a Tony-type screen. Reducing the scudge to 5 or 10% would be fine by me and I do like that "every last drop" claim. Perhaps those large holes are an advantage when it comes to clogging?

I think the trick to any internal filter is the low flow rate as Tony says; you need to settle your mass of trub carefully without too much vacuum. Same as with sparging generally. Randy Mosher (Radical Brewing) goes on about this at length.

Thanks for the tip Boston; I was gonna try with the sand I have just to test the concept. Optimise later. I was also hoping my pre-eroded "river" sand would be extremely neutral and not shed much grit. We'll see

 

[shandy]

Well thats my plan for the 18 galloong keg kettle.

The hops will sink faster to form a filter bed for the break

I do this currently witrh a dodgy SS mesh FB and it works to a point but a large surface area FB would work much much better.

As you can see the FB above is much more efficient. The dodgy mesh one is all i can fit tin the rotton odd shaped base of the 18 gallon keg and i get more hops and break in the fermenter. Still doesnt make any difference as it sinks and the beer is racked off it when done. Also loose a liter or 2 in the kettle as it blocks and sucks air at the end before it can slowly drain through.

Surface area is the key i think...... size does matter

cheers

Toss a few whole hop flowers into the mix and you've got yourself a pretty good filter bed then I reckon.

Looks like a 9" false bottom could be on my post xmas shopping list. If anyone knows of the best kind for the job shout out. The only ones I know of are the More Beer ones that Grain and Grape carry.

 

[Tony]

you need to settle your mass of trub carefully without too much vacuum. Same as with sparging generally.

Hit the nail on the head!

As for hop flowers........ it was origionaly built to handle them and i thought........ i wonder if it will hold pellets......... and it did.

Hop flowers really show how they catch the hot break!

here is a small amount of Sothern Cross used to bitter a Doppelbock.

cheers

 

[rich_lamb]

Well Thirsty, you are a genius after all - I tested the sand filter and it works brilliantly.

My test used a reduced boil size of 15L, and no malt so there are assumptions about hot break.
The sand I have looks like this (after being rinsed several times):



My pickup tube is a pretty basic affair - just a copper elbow that points to the bottom of the kettle.
But for this I wrapped it in stainless gauze (which I borrowed from my mash tun).
It's a bit long but does the job of excluding the sand:



So with about 1.5L of the sand spread in the bottom of the kettle:



I added the 15L of water, got her up to the boil - which all behaved as per normal - and added a selection of hop pellets I had in the fridge.
In this case I used:
21g of cascade @ 6.7%
34g of fuggles @ 3.9%

which should be pretty representative of a typical brew in terms of sheer mass of hop pellets.
Who really cares about how bitter my water ends up being right?
Boiled for about 5-10 minutes, flame out and then run off into the cube.

I reduced the runoff rate: very slow to start, then a bit faster such that it fully drained in about 10-15 minutes.

At the end, I had extracted "every last drop" of hopped water, with it's greenish tinge, and all the pellet residue was left behind:



The liquid in the cube has now cooled quite a bit - it's been there about an hour - and the amount of residue that's settled out is miniscule. Barely a dusting on the bottom of the cube.

So it seems to work as well as a Tony screen; and I guess there's other ways of doing it also, though I think Tony is right in the secret is the rate you drain the kettle to not clog up your filter.

cheers,
B&T

PS: no water wasted - all tank water, which seems to be falling from the sky for free in great abundance right now

 

[Pumpy]

Well Thirsty, you are a genius after all - I tested the sand filter and it works brilliantly.

My test used a reduced boil size of 15L, and no malt so there are assumptions about hot break.
The sand I have looks like this (after being rinsed several times):

View attachment 23439

My pickup tube is a pretty basic affair - just a copper elbow that points to the bottom of the kettle.
But for this I wrapped it in stainless gauze (which I borrowed from my mash tun).
It's a bit long but does the job of excluding the sand:

View attachment 23440

So with about 1.5L of the sand spread in the bottom of the kettle:

View attachment 23441

I added the 15L of water, got her up to the boil - which all behaved as per normal - and added a selection of hop pellets I had in the fridge.
In this case I used:
21g of cascade @ 6.7%
34g of fuggles @ 3.9%

which should be pretty representative of a typical brew in terms of sheer mass of hop pellets.
Who really cares about how bitter my water ends up being right?
Boiled for about 5-10 minutes, flame out and then run off into the cube.

I reduced the runoff rate: very slow to start, then a bit faster such that it fully drained in about 10-15 minutes.

At the end, I had extracted "every last drop" of hopped water, with it's greenish tinge, and all the pellet residue was left behind:

View attachment 23442

The liquid in the cube has now cooled quite a bit - it's been there about an hour - and the amount of residue that's settled out is miniscule. Barely a dusting on the bottom of the cube.

So it seems to work as well as a Tony screen; and I guess there's other ways of doing it also, though I think Tony is right in the secret is the rate you drain the kettle to not clog up your filter.

cheers,
B&T

PS: no water wasted - all tank water, which seems to be falling from the sky for free in great abundance right now

 

[Thirsty Boy]

well bugger me - it works. It might not be practical, but it does seem to be effective.

Perhaps a wee flywire mesh baggie of the stuff might even be practical in a weird sort of way - probably not but who knows.

Did it effect the boil at all?

Pumpy ... seems that sand/gravel is effective at filtering out all sorts of stuff

Cheers for trying that B&T

Thirsty

 

[Pumpy]

I am your biggest fan Thirsty, Merry Christmas

Pumpy

 

[Tony]

Did you wash the sand/gravel out afterwards? Was it easy to clean up?

Cant think of a better use for cascade and fuggles!!! :lol: h34r:

Good work folks!

cheers

 

[rich_lamb]

Well it's not that impractical - just a bit of rinsing of sand involved. I did rinse it afterwards and the hops come out quite easily, so I put the sand in an old hopsock to dry.

It didn't affect the boil other than a slight crackling noise as the bubbles come through the sand - the sand pretty much stays put though.

I'll use it a few times until something better presents - its a pretty cheap and easy solution for now!

 

[SJW]

Do u need to recirculate the cooled wort for long through the sand bed?
And that looks more like the gravel you use infish tanks?

Steve

 

[Tony]

I thought the same thing steve...... fishtank gravel

cheers

 

[rich_lamb]

Come ta think of it, yeah it's like some fishtank gravels - most fishtank gravel is a bit finer than this stuff. But I doubt it would make much difference.

I didn't recirculate at all - just turned on the tap slowly, running straight into the cube.