Chiller and hops question

[milkit99]

Hi all.

Perhaps a bit of a newbie question, but somethings been nibbling at me as I've been reading up on wort chillers.

A number of posts I've read about plate chillers have users mention that one particular annoyance is when the hops clog it.
I would have thought a simple solution to this would be to tie up the hops/pellets in a little swiss voille bag, and maybe suspend it from a hook on the edge of a kettle or something. Is there any reason why this wouldn't be such a great idea?

Cheers!
Ash

 

[WeaselEstateBrewery]

Yeah that's a sound strategy, or use a hop sock.

I find pellets are ok without a bag if you whirlpool if there is not a huge hop bill but flowers definitely need to be contained.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

I used a hop bag (one of the big ones from Craftbrewer) for my first few runs on the plater chiller. I've progressively phased that out. Last week I put 50g of pellets at 10 mins and another 50 at 0.

Even post whirlpool there was a fair bit of hop matter suspended, but it did not clog or noticably slow the flow. Seemed to flush out perfectly as well (fingers crossed on that one!)