I just switched to the Clawhammer system, which was my first time using a hop spider. My first hoppy-ish beer (an english bitter) came out noticeably lacking bitterness, which was surprising as it is a recipe I've made 4 or 5 times before with very consistent results. The difference unfortunately was not subtle. The beer ended up being syrupy sweet as there was very little hop bitterness to balance the malty sweetness from the base and crystal malts.
My assumption is that I got decreased hop utilization due to the hop spider. I didn't do anything specifically to encourage utilization like stirring in the spider, or recirculating through it. I know that this effect is pretty well documented.
So given that discouraging result, I started looking at ways to set the hops free, and still not clog my plate chiller. Here's what I came up with:
1. remove the bazooka screen from the kettle
2. recirculate through the chiller at the beginning of the boil before any hop additions to sanitize it, and then remove the chiller from the recirculation loop
3. add all hops directly to the kettle and brew as normal (including bittering, aroma, whirlpool hops)
4. as a final step before moving the wort to the fermenter, add the clean hop spider to the kettle, recirculate through the hop spider for ~5 minutes to remove the hops
I did this with a hazy pale ale this weekend, and was successful in the sense that I added hops directly to the kettle during the boil and whirlpool without bags, a spider etc, and I did not clog the chiller. This beer had about 2.5 oz of kettle hops in a 5 gallon batch, so not crazy hoppy, but still significant. In my estimation, I was able to remove the vast majority of the hop material after whirlpooling.
I know some may be thinking "Why do you need to remove hops after whirlpooling? If you whirlpooled correctly, you should have a nice trub cone, and can rack clear wort." In my experience, this helps, but it just doesn't work well enough at a 5 gallon homebrew scale to be the only defense.
Anyway, does anyone else do this? Thoughts or comments on this approach?
My assumption is that I got decreased hop utilization due to the hop spider. I didn't do anything specifically to encourage utilization like stirring in the spider, or recirculating through it. I know that this effect is pretty well documented.
So given that discouraging result, I started looking at ways to set the hops free, and still not clog my plate chiller. Here's what I came up with:
1. remove the bazooka screen from the kettle
2. recirculate through the chiller at the beginning of the boil before any hop additions to sanitize it, and then remove the chiller from the recirculation loop
3. add all hops directly to the kettle and brew as normal (including bittering, aroma, whirlpool hops)
4. as a final step before moving the wort to the fermenter, add the clean hop spider to the kettle, recirculate through the hop spider for ~5 minutes to remove the hops
I did this with a hazy pale ale this weekend, and was successful in the sense that I added hops directly to the kettle during the boil and whirlpool without bags, a spider etc, and I did not clog the chiller. This beer had about 2.5 oz of kettle hops in a 5 gallon batch, so not crazy hoppy, but still significant. In my estimation, I was able to remove the vast majority of the hop material after whirlpooling.
I know some may be thinking "Why do you need to remove hops after whirlpooling? If you whirlpooled correctly, you should have a nice trub cone, and can rack clear wort." In my experience, this helps, but it just doesn't work well enough at a 5 gallon homebrew scale to be the only defense.
Anyway, does anyone else do this? Thoughts or comments on this approach?