Hop sock and break material

[Jeltz]

I'm planning my 1st AG - BIAB for Wednesday. I shall be using a hop sock but am aware that a hop strainers also prevent some break material from entering the FV.

Is it much? While the boil is ongoing I could wash out the bag and put it into the FV to catch any bits in the wort then lift it out before I pitch the yeast.

 

[Kev888]

The hop strainer does keep some of the break out, but mainly its the hops themselves that settle over the hop strainer and form a filter bed for the finer stuff (in fact unless I let that happen, my hop strainer gets blocked with break).

The hop sock used as a sieve may help, not sure how much though as I've never tried one quite like that, myself. If you've just been boiling it (with the boil hops) then it should be pretty sterile, so provided you don't contaminate it between then and when using it as a sieve it probably won't hurt if you wanted to try it. Keep an eye on it though, if it gets clogged you could have wort everywhere..

But I wouldn't worry at all if its not successful; break in the FV looks bad (and may be an irritation if you were later hoping to re-harvest yeast) but it doesn't cause any particular problem.

Cheers
kev