False bottoms on these homebrew systems are generally pretty ****. Not an issue normally, but best to make sure you make reasonable efforts to filter out any solid debris if using a plate chiller. Not sure about the bouncer filter….sure it works, but I’d bet for large hop additions it doesn’t have sufficient capacity and will clog during the transfer. Some ideas below:
Perform a good whirlpool. I whirlpool the entire time from ‘flame out/elements off through the hopstand and during cooling. Gives the best chance of hops being contained in the centre of the false bottom and away from the edge. The main issue is hops getting past the edges due to very poor fit around the FB edge. But the narrow and tall dimensions of most systems means the effectiveness of this method is limited.
Can try a slower transfer by throttling the pump reducing ‘suction’ pulling more hops through and around the FB - impatience is a brewers worst enemy and sometimes just taking some time and doing things slowly and methodically delivers benefits.
Use a sufficiently large filter like the larger bouncer or something even larger, but can be expensive.
Try a hop back like a hop rocket or hop missile. Ideal with plate chillers and saves time in the hopstand as you just transfer right away after reducing temp to below 80degs C. Also acts as an effective filter for other solid matter in your wort.
Last resort is to use a large bag. I’d favour that over a hop spider that (in my experience at least) has insufficient surface area and clogs easily reducing utilisation and can cause problems of getting wort trapped in the spider. Could use more than one spider I guess and share hops across the them, but you still get the problem of hops being concentrated and compacted in the narrow bottom of the spider. A very large bag gives the hops loads of room to float around in the bag improving utilisation and you get the opportunity to twist the bag and squeeze out the wort at the end.
Plate chillers are great if you can manage the debris going through them. They are a PITA if they clog. Worth finding a method that works for you in my opinion. But would be nice if the manufacturers paid some attention to the false bottoms of their systems. They seem to be pretty ineffective across all of them from what I can tell.
