[redrocker652002]

Greetings to all, in my attempt to try something new, I am going to work a hop stand into my next brew. Having never done this before, I am curious about a few things. I use a hop bag for all my hops during the boil, as I am boiling on a propane burner with a 10 gallon kettle. I don't use a false bottom, although I have one and might give it a go this time because most every brew there has been crud at the bottom of the kettle to where I have had to sanitize my hand and run my hand up and down my bazooka screen to get the wort out. I am hoping maybe using a false bottom might help with this. But I digress, my question is really more about the Hop stand. I have extra hop bags and was thinking of using a different bag for this. My thought, as suggested by somebody here, was to cool the wort to about 175 and then stop the chiller, add the hops and steep for about 10 to 15 mins and then start the chiller again Also, with my kettle hops I just leave the bag in until I drain into my fermenter, is that the same with the hop stand hops?

Also, getting back to the false bottom, I use a BIAB setup and I don't know why I am getting so much crud in the bottom of the kettle. I have been toying with the idea of pulling the screen and using a fine mesh "collander" type screen over my fermenter bucket and trying to see how much that will catch. Any thoughts there? I have read that using a false bottom may affect efficiency so I am not sure I want to do that as I am doing pretty well in that aspect of the brewing.

Sorry for the long post, but I had my coffee this morning and I am feeling good. LOL

[denny]

I think the bag is fine idea. Go ahead and leave it in til you xfer to fermenter. I did hope stands for a long time, but finally gave it up because I found I didn't get anything I couldn't get from dry hops. It's a great idea to go ahead and find out for yourself if you like it.

[ynotbrusum]

Try a few different ways and see what you like best, as Denny suggests.  FWIW, I have found that a late boil hop addition with a quick wort chill through the hop stand temperature zone and continuing to pitching temperature gives me what I want from what we traditionally called the "flavor" and "aroma" hop additions, but I rarely make IPA's and thus don't do a lot of dry hopping.

After several hundred batches, I settled on this approach, but you may want a different result and use a different means of getting what you want.  Cheers!

[BrewBama]

Hop Stands are sooooo boring. Nothing happening and take FOREVER. .  I just did a 155°F one hour whirlpool. I tend to avoid them but this recipe called for it.


One day, you’ll wake up and there won’t be anymore time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Don’t wait. Do it now.

[reverseapachemaster]

Greetings to all, in my attempt to try something new, I am going to work a hop stand into my next brew. Having never done this before, I am curious about a few things. I use a hop bag for all my hops during the boil, as I am boiling on a propane burner with a 10 gallon kettle. I don't use a false bottom, although I have one and might give it a go this time because most every brew there has been crud at the bottom of the kettle to where I have had to sanitize my hand and run my hand up and down my bazooka screen to get the wort out. I am hoping maybe using a false bottom might help with this. But I digress, my question is really more about the Hop stand. I have extra hop bags and was thinking of using a different bag for this. My thought, as suggested by somebody here, was to cool the wort to about 175 and then stop the chiller, add the hops and steep for about 10 to 15 mins and then start the chiller again Also, with my kettle hops I just leave the bag in until I drain into my fermenter, is that the same with the hop stand hops?

Yeah that's all there is to a hop stand. You can play around with cooler temperatures and/or longer stands as well. I'd leave the hop stand bag in the kettle until you're ready to transfer.

Hop stands are a good tool to have in your toolbelt. I like using them over late additions for a lot of my beers but you can combine it with boil and cold side additions. These days I'm pretty much only doing hop stands for flavor/aroma additions on hoppy beers but I'm also not brewing much in the way of IPAs. Even my pale ales are just bittering and hop stands.

Also, getting back to the false bottom, I use a BIAB setup and I don't know why I am getting so much crud in the bottom of the kettle. I have been toying with the idea of pulling the screen and using a fine mesh "collander" type screen over my fermenter bucket and trying to see how much that will catch. Any thoughts there? I have read that using a false bottom may affect efficiency so I am not sure I want to do that as I am doing pretty well in that aspect of the brewing.

This is why I stopped BIAB. I was getting an enormous amount of grain sediment carrying over into the kettle and into the fermenter. A tighter mesh on your bag may help (if that's an option) but you can only do so much to keep out the flour. Pellet hops make the problem worse but you're probably not getting too much sediment if you bag your hops.

Any screen or filter will get clogged with the same thing. The benefit of pouring wort through an external filter like a colander is the ability to dump it out as it clogs. You need a fairly fine mesh if you want to keep most of the flour and small grain bits out but the finer you go the quicker it clogs. You may find yourself trading one annoyance for another, although a colander doesn't require sticking your arm in your wort.

Unless fermenter headspace is a real concern, might make sense to forego filtering entirely and sacrifice a couple inches of beer during racking to keep sediment out of the final package.

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Also, getting back to the false bottom, I use a BIAB setup and I don't know why I am getting so much crud in the bottom of the kettle. I have been toying with the idea of pulling the screen and using a fine mesh "collander" type screen over my fermenter bucket and trying to see how much that will catch. Any thoughts there? I have read that using a false bottom may affect efficiency so I am not sure I want to do that as I am doing pretty well in that aspect of the brewing.

Gravity + a couple of hours is another option. 

Currently, for my 2.5 gal BIAB batches, I cool the wort to around 75F, then move the kettle to the basement (55F winter, 65F summer).  After a couple of hours, most of the trub has settled towards the bottom.  I then pour the wort from the kettle (through a funnel) into the 3 gal plastic narrow neck carboy.  When the wort becomes sludge, I stop pouring. 

I tried the collander approach once (based on some ideas in HomeBrewTalks "one gallon brewers unite" topic.  If you ask about using collanders over there and no one replies, I'll see if I can find the replies in that topic. 

[Megary]

Regarding kettle trub, take it as a trade off for the overall ease of BIAB.

Just bump up your “kettle losses” in your software and start with more water.  Leave whatever volume of junk you aren’t comfortable with behind in the kettle.  Why mess with more equipment that you’ll have to clean?

Don’t get hung up on “brewhouse efficiency”.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as the beer is tasty and the process is fun.

[redrocker652002]

Thanks for all the replies.  This one was a learning experience all around.  My temps were all over the place due to my using my Inkbird probe thermometer instead of going with the thermometer on the kettle, that I have been using all along.  My pitch temp was spot on so that is good.  I tossed the hops in, pellet of course, and it jacked up the banjo screen and the colander.  Went elbow deep into the wort and got it all thru.  Ended up with a bit over 5 gallons in the bucket.  But, my OG was supposed to be 1.052 and it ended up at 1.061.  Oh well, we will see.  The yeast has started doing its thing in less than 12 hours, so I feel ok about that.  Now, it is a waiting game. 

[Drewch]

Unless fermenter headspace is a real concern, might make sense to forego filtering entirely and sacrifice a couple inches of beer during racking to keep sediment out of the final package.

That's my approach. Cloudy wort does not necessarily mean cloudy beer. As long as it settles below the level of the bottling spigot, it stays in the fermenter.

[ynotbrusum]

A floating diptube in the fermenter works great for me.  Clear beer drawn off the top of the fermenter post fermentation, combined with a spunding valve to carb the beer toward the end of fermentation and you have a workable system for racking clear, carbed beer to the serving keg.

[redrocker652002]

Thanks for all the replies.  It was a good experiment and I learned a few things.  It is in the fermenter now bubbling along, so we shall see.  Not sure if I will go with this method again in the future but who knows.  LOL

[chinaski]

Regarding kettle trub, take it as a trade off for the overall ease of BIAB.

Just bump up your “kettle losses” in your software and start with more water.  Leave whatever volume of junk you aren’t comfortable with behind in the kettle.  Why mess with more equipment that you’ll have to clean?

Don’t get hung up on “brewhouse efficiency”.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as the beer is tasty and the process is fun.

As for not getting hung up- I agree.  If you have to worry about one aspect of it, try to record it for each brew and find out if it's consistent.  Much better to have it be consistent than anything else so you can predict your gravity fairly well when creating new recipes or modifying existing ones for your system.

[neuse]

Regarding kettle trub, take it as a trade off for the overall ease of BIAB.

Just bump up your “kettle losses” in your software and start with more water.  Leave whatever volume of junk you aren’t comfortable with behind in the kettle.  Why mess with more equipment that you’ll have to clean?

Don’t get hung up on “brewhouse efficiency”.  It really doesn’t matter, as long as the beer is tasty and the process is fun.

As for not getting hung up- I agree.  If you have to worry about one aspect of it, try to record it for each brew and find out if it's consistent.  Much better to have it be consistent than anything else so you can predict your gravity fairly well when creating new recipes or modifying existing ones for your system.

+1000 - Consistency is way more important than maximizing efficiency (to me).