Syphoning With Lots of Hop Debris

[Graz]

In short had a right nightmare yesterday evening trying to syphon my Cwtch kit into the bottling bucket.

Went about it in the usual manner using one of the hop filters that you get with the Festival kits or similar tied over the sediment trap on the syphon and pulled tight. This usually works out fine for me but not with this one. It just kept getting blocked up with the debris after which I'd have to swirl it around a little to wash off the crud and restart it. I eventually ended up with about a gallon of beer left which was refusing to be drawn out so I gave up with the syphon at that point. I ended up lining a sieve with a new J cloth and carefully poured the remainder out of the FV leaving as much of the sediment behind as I could.

Wound up with there still being a bit of sediment / hop debris in the bottling bucket and it was getting late (and I was getting annoyed) so I stuck it back in the brew fridge and set it to cold to get it to crash out. I'll probably syphon it off again into another bottling bucket and then bottle from there. Hope I haven't ruined it.

I guess the obvious answer is to put the hops in a bag in the FV but I do quite like having them loose as I think this allows more flavour and aroma to be imparted. Like I say normally it works well enough with the hop strainer bag.

So let's hear your tips and tricks for syphoning a brew out of the fermenter that has a had a large dry hop addition?

 

[MagnusTS]

Your hops will probably have settled in your bottling bucket by now, so you might be able to bottle without needing to transfer to another bucket. But no worries if a little bit of hops makes it through to your bottles?

I chuck the hops in loose like you. I use the filter bag on the outflow rather than the sediment trap end, and I think that helps. the syphon does sometimes get blocked with hops, but less often I think.

Now I use taps on the FV with the Hop sock on the outflow. No Hop blockages so far, but taps bring their own set of little problems.

 

[IainM]

I bottled a cwtch kit last week with extra dry hops on top of what came with the kit. I set the brew fridge to -1C to cold crash and everything dropped out so I just syphoned off with no problem. However, before I had the fridge I used to have this problem for heavily dry hopped beer. What worked for me was replacing the sediment trap with one of these, which was recommended by Dutto. If it gets blocked you can just raise the other end of the syphon enough for the beer to flow back a bit and unblock it, then just lower it again and the flow resumes.

 

[JapanBrew]

Magnus is right. I wouldn’t worry about a bit getting in. But advice would be to syphone from mid FV and work your way down. Towards the end, if you grab a bit it’s ok. Just don’t move the tube around. You’ll notice that the speed is slow enough not to pull all the trub in.

 

[Alside101]

I use my hop spider that i use when im doing a boil works a treat just pop it in then siphon from inside it

 

[Graz]

Magnus is right. I wouldn’t worry about a bit getting in. But advice would be to syphone from mid FV and work your way down. Towards the end, if you grab a bit it’s ok. Just don’t move the tube around. You’ll notice that the speed is slow enough not to pull all the trub in.

I did the midway working my way down trick, problem was the hop pellets with this one must have been really fine, almost dust like, and there was a lot of it in suspension.

 

[JapanBrew]

I use my hop spider that i use when im doing a boil works a treat just pop it in then siphon from inside it

That sounds cool. I guess it would be easy to boil it and use.

 

[Graz]

What worked for me was replacing the sediment trap with one of these, which was recommended by Dutto. If it gets blocked you can just raise the other end of the syphon enough for the beer to flow back a bit and unblock it, then just lower it again and the flow resumes.

Thanks, think I'll get some of those, look useful. :thumb:

 

[Graz]

Your hops will probably have settled in your bottling bucket by now, so you might be able to bottle without needing to transfer to another bucket. But no worries if a little bit of hops makes it through to your bottles?

My plan was to batch prime hence moving it to another bucket as I'll need to stir in the priming sugar solution. Could prime in the bottle though.

 

[foxy]

You could use a secondary and get a tap on your fermenters, use some biofine clear or gelatine in the secondary, cold crash to -1 or -2 depending on your gravity readings. Or another option is try hopstand and skip the dry hop. Also batch prime, so much easier.
,

 

[bigbud78]

I use my hop spider that i use when im doing a boil works a treat just pop it in then siphon from inside it

I've done this before, worked really well actually

 

[sdt7618]

I found the little hop socks get clogged, not because of the debris, but they get sucked in to the siphon end. solved this with a Sparkling wine bottle cage inside the sock and the siphon end into the cage. keeps the material away from the siphon, haven't had any issues since. its a good thing the wife likes the sparking wine as they are simply sprayed with star san and chucked when done.

 

[Graz]

I found the little hop socks get clogged, not because of the debris, but they get sucked in to the siphon end. solved this with a Sparkling wine bottle cage inside the sock and the siphon end into the cage. keeps the material away from the siphon, haven't had any issues since. its a good thing the wife likes the sparking wine as they are simply sprayed with star san and chucked when done.

It was essentially that what was happening but I don't normally get the problem if I pull the sock tight. I put it down to the debris building up on the sock thes making suction harder and ultimately drawing the sock into the syphon. Good idea though with the cage and something else I might try in future (note to self keep cage of whatever bottle of fizz the wife drinks next!) :thumb:

To update, after it's short cold crash I transferred it to another bottling bucket last night, there actually wasn't too much stuff in the bottom but probably enough to make bottling a bit of a pain. Batch primed, bottled and now back in the warm to prime. Early sample smells amazing and tastes pretty good too, just hope it stays that way after all the faffing around.

 

[Graz]

Having posted this thread several months ago I seem to have completely failed to listen to any advice given in it as last night I attempted to keg my American Amber Ale ( with 100g dry hop) and ran into the same set of problems along with much cursing. Lost about half a gallon in the end and a lot of sediment is now in the barrel but it will settle out so I'll live with that.

Next time I'm doing everything, cold crash and either one of those syphon filters linked or a hop spider (or both).

 

[terrym]

I use one of these over the FV end of my siphon tube......

They can be bought off ebay but mine came from a Festival kit.
Recommended.

 

[Graz]

That's what I was using, just kept clogging up. Sometimes these work just fine but in general it seems the kits with the larger dry hop additions (i.e. Cwtch, American Amber and others) there's just too much debris for the sock to cope with. I've ordered some of the siphon filters linked earlier so I'll see how they go as the next two kits I have lined up are the Young's American IPA and a Festival Razorback IPA both with lots of hops. Despite having been brewing for over 25 years I'm still learning :nod:

 

[terrym]

Hop bits from pellets don't settle and compact very well in my experience and the more hops you use the thicker the layer at the bottom of the FV, so it's frustrating to have to leave good beer at the bottom of the FV at packaging time. The best you can do is to cold crash at the end of the dry hopping period and also rap the side of the FV at the liquid/ headspace interface which does encourage the bits to drop after they are properly wetted which is normally after 24 hours.
That said if you are getting clogging of the siphon sock thingy perhaps you should be thinking of a large weighted hop bag if you are using lots of hops, although I have done a Youngs AIPA kit with 100g hops and the sock thingy didn't get blocked.

 

[Alside101]

You could put a hop sock on the other end to catch what comes through instead of the end in the fv

 

[soupdragon]

You could put a hop sock on the other end to catch what comes through instead of the end in the fv

Exactly what I do. No problems since

Cheers. Tom

 

[pms67]

That's what I was using, just kept clogging up. Sometimes these work just fine but in general it seems the kits with the larger dry hop additions (i.e. Cwtch, American Amber and others) there's just too much debris for the sock to cope with. I've ordered some of the siphon filters linked earlier so I'll see how they go as the next two kits I have lined up are the Young's American IPA and a Festival Razorback IPA both with lots of hops. Despite having been brewing for over 25 years I'm still learning :nod:

I have always had bother with hops,pellets are miles better for taste etc but a nightmare when bottling,I just use a fine sieve after the boil and even though I’ve got one of the SS fermenters with a cone shaped bottom, I STILL have trouble,I have to cold crash because I don’t transfer again,I just dump my sugar in then bottle ten minutes later,first bottle is clogged and I still lose a bit at the end,it’s all worth it though,a beer with no hops ain’t a beer :Cheers: