Filtering hoppy beers into bottling bucket

Duncan Dobbin · Aug 26, 2019

So I have just had the most frustrating bottling session of my short brewing life so far!
I brewed a hoppy ale, with a double dry hop total of 70g pellets (in a 12L FV yield). I went to bottle it today after two weeks in the FV, and it went from bad to worse. Firstly my racking wand failed miserably, and got clogged up almost immediately. I then placed a muslin bag over the end of the wand, and still this got clogged quickly with barely any flow of beer into the bottling bucket. So without any other means I had to carefully remove small batches of the beer from the FV in a sterilised pyrex jar, and poured this carefully through a sieve into the bucket. This seemed to be going OK until I had a very similar issue when it came to bottling, with the bottling wand clogging up as well, and seemingly still a lot of hop matter going into the bottles. This doesn't concern me too much, as I know this will drop out during conditioning. But what really got my goat was that from 12L in the FV, I barely managed 8L in the bottles (16 x 500ml).
This is the hoppiest ale I have brewed so far, so is a 30% loss to be expected, or is there some way to limit this loss, and filter the beer during transfer in a more efficient way?
Thanks!

kelper · Aug 26, 2019

Did you put the hops into a bag or straight into the FV?

chrisb8 · Aug 26, 2019

I use a small mesh filter on the end of the racking cane. In theory the majority of the hop debris etc should have fallen to the bottom of the fv, especially if you have cold crashed after fermentation. The other trick is to start with the racking cane positioned way above the trub layer and gradually lower it down as the level of the wort drops. This way you limit how much crud is sucked up until the end.

DavidDetroit · Aug 26, 2019

I also was going to ask where you placed your racking cane to begin with. You shouldn't lose any more than with any other style.

Duncan Dobbin · Aug 26, 2019

kelper said:
Did you put the hops into a bag or straight into the FV?

Straight into the FV.

Duncan Dobbin · Aug 26, 2019

davidfromUS said:
I also was going to ask where you placed your racking cane to begin with. You shouldn't lose any more than with any other style.

Yeah, the racking cane was in the middle of the beer, and wasn't touching the trub (as far as I know). I suppose there is a chance that it did touch the trub without me noticing, hence the crud being pumped up the cane initially. However, it's the amount of beer that I lost that is concerning me the most.

kelper · Aug 26, 2019

I feel your pain. I've only brewed kits. When they had hop pellets they mostly disintegrated. But they did supply a muslin bag to go over the siphon when you transferred to keg or bottle.

matt76 · Aug 26, 2019

Yep, I feel your pain mate, I've had similar problems too - weirdly it seems to have been more of a problem recently when I've done repeat brews then when I did them first time round.

I've had all the same problems, using hop bags as filters on the syphon tube and they get blocked up, same issue when I put a muslin on the bottling bucket tap, and then the bottling wand gets clogged with hops...

... oh yeah, and then I found the hop bits that found their way into the bottles act as nucleation points so they really fizz up upon opening which kicks up the sediment in the bottle

I think these are the filters others have used on the syphon tube - I've never tried them but might give one a whirl. My issue is it's one more thing to clean or potentially introduce contamination... Also I'm not sure why these would be any less inclined to get clogged...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M74BJW3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kP-yDbH3HCRG7

I think there's something to be said for cold crashing if you have the means (I don't unless it's winter!)...

Also I've tried dry hopping using hop bags weighed down with spoons - that might help too...

Best of luck! athumb..

Clint · Aug 26, 2019

I bag all mine with spoons..

Duncan Dobbin · Aug 26, 2019

matt76 said:
Yep, I feel your pain mate, I've had similar problems too - weirdly it seems to have been more of a problem recently when I've done repeat brews then when I did them first time round.

I've had all the same problems, using hop bags as filters on the syphon tube and they get blocked up, same issue when I put a muslin on the bottling bucket tap, and then the bottling wand gets clogged with hops...

... oh yeah, and then I found the hop bits that found their way into the bottles act as nucleation points so they really fizz up upon opening which kicks up the sediment in the bottle

I think these are the filters others have used on the syphon tube - I've never tried them but might give one a whirl. My issue is it's one more thing to clean or potentially introduce contamination... Also I'm not sure why these would be any less inclined to get clogged...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M74BJW3/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kP-yDbH3HCRG7

I think there's something to be said for cold crashing if you have the means (I don't unless it's winter!)...

Also I've tried dry hopping using hop bags weighed down with spoons - that might help too...

Best of luck!

Don't have a fermentation fridge set up yet, so cold crashing a no no for now. I think I will try using the nylon hop bags next, and see how much this changes things. Hopefully, whilst this session was a pain, the beer will still taste as good as ever!

Rodcx500z · Aug 26, 2019

Duncan Dobbin said:
Don't have a fermentation fridge set up yet, so cold crashing a no no for now. I think I will try using the nylon hop bags next, and see how much this changes things. Hopefully, whilst this session was a pain, the beer will still taste as good as ever!

Hi Duncan, some say you lose a bit of hop flavour using a bag so what I do is, I want 25 g I will use 30 wether this works I don't know but I always get that extra kick from dry hopping acheers.

DavidDetroit · Aug 26, 2019

Duncan Dobbin said:
Yeah, the racking cane was in the middle of the beer, and wasn't touching the trub (as far as I know). I suppose there is a chance that it did touch the trub without me noticing, hence the crud being pumped up the cane initially. However, it's the amount of beer that I lost that is concerning me the most.

There are usually a few floaters even in the middle. The screening mentioned is a good idea. I don't make hop-heavy beers but I keep extra spring loaded tips so I can replace when one gets clogged.
Right though, the main point is the high ratio of lost beer.
One thing you could try is place the fermenter where you'll be bottling a day before so it will settle.

dad_of_jon · Aug 26, 2019

bags with giant marbles as i've have no success with putting a bag on EITHER end of the syphon. The pellets will soak up quite a bit of beer

chrisb8 · Aug 26, 2019

matt76 said:
I think these are the filters others have used on the syphon tube

Yes, that's the exact thing I use and I don't find it clogs at all. But then I do cold crash and fine my beers before racking...

Gavin Callaghan · Aug 28, 2019

If you have the ability, I'd recommend a cold crash for a few days before bottling

MrL73 · Aug 30, 2019

The advantage of having the hops in a bag is you can give it a gentle squeeze with a sanitised hand and get some of those losses back. I imagine this may have some hideous oxidising effect but I normally drink all mine before that is an issue.

Keruso · Aug 31, 2019

Duncan Dobbin said:
So I have just had the most frustrating bottling session of my short brewing life so far!
I brewed a hoppy ale, with a double dry hop total of 70g pellets (in a 12L FV yield). I went to bottle it today after two weeks in the FV, and it went from bad to worse. Firstly my racking wand failed miserably, and got clogged up almost immediately. I then placed a muslin bag over the end of the wand, and still this got clogged quickly with barely any flow of beer into the bottling bucket. So without any other means I had to carefully remove small batches of the beer from the FV in a sterilised pyrex jar, and poured this carefully through a sieve into the bucket. This seemed to be going OK until I had a very similar issue when it came to bottling, with the bottling wand clogging up as well, and seemingly still a lot of hop matter going into the bottles. This doesn't concern me too much, as I know this will drop out during conditioning. But what really got my goat was that from 12L in the FV, I barely managed 8L in the bottles (16 x 500ml).
This is the hoppiest ale I have brewed so far, so is a 30% loss to be expected, or is there some way to limit this loss, and filter the beer during transfer in a more efficient way?
Thanks!

I prefer to add pellet hops directly into the FV when dry hopping because that maximizes the surface area of hops that come into contact with the beer so you get far more aroma. To stop clogging up your siphon I always cold crash and then put one of these hop spiders https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stainles...hash=item4d9859be15:m:m-wZ1CTdVPoOOTRyotpg9fg into the FV, you put your siphon into the spider which stops any particles from getting into your siphon. You should use the larger 30cm version. It works brilliantly because there’s so much surface area it doesn’t clog or stop the beer flowing.

matt76 · Aug 31, 2019

@Keruso ooh, now that's a really interesting idea I hadn't thought of. You make a great point about the large surface area athumb..

Just so I'm 100% clear, you're putting the hop spider in the FV right, and not in the bottling bucket?

(Not that I guess it matters much, as long as you avoid splashing)

Keruso · Aug 31, 2019

matt76 said:
@Keruso ooh, now that's a really interesting idea I hadn't thought of. You make a great point about the large surface area

Just so I'm 100% clear, you're putting the hop spider in the FV right, and not in the bottling bucket?

(Not that I guess it matters much, as long as you avoid splashing)

Hi, I place the spider in the FV and not the bottling bucket because this way stops your syphon from getting blocked, put the syphon in the spider, start syphoning, hold onto the spider until the level drops enough so that the spider rests on the bottom. It works a treat because there’s so much more surface area compared to putting a bag over the end of the syphon. I started doing this because I found using bags or spider for dry hopping inhibits the maximum aroma from reaching the beer. They are cheap to buy, get the 30cm long one, they mostly come from China so take few weeks to arrive.

chrisb8 · Aug 31, 2019

@Keruso what a good idea athumb..

Filtering hoppy beers into bottling bucket

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