The German MattMill LauterHexe 1000: http://www.vanderkooyjubbega.nl/mattmill-lauterhexe-1000.html
Or with what is, IMO a far better connector than the T-fitting available from the BrewPi store: https://store.brewpi.com/brewpi-matmill-lauterhexe-kit
Pretty ingenious, really.
Adam
Hmmm, I like the look of the brew pi one. Currently, when I whirlpool in my kettle, the cold break and hop material cone is being partially sucked into the fermenter when I drain the wort because the filter pushes straight into the centre of the kettle. This would solve that problem perfectly... working out at €75 with shipping, not sure if its worth that.
Mark
I decided to get one of these to try out as I recently switched to pellet hops and need a better method for keeping the trub in the kettle. Was a little supprised when it arrived, I'm not sure what I was expecting but essentially its a giant spring like coil. Due to this coil design, when screwing it in to one side of the Tee (brewpi one) the other side is unscrewing itself. It took a few attempts to find the "balance"; 10 twists left side, 5 twists right side (or something like that).
Used it on my last brewday and it worked pretty well. I don't like to bag hops and I don't have a means of whirlpooling so as you can imagine my kettle gets pretty gunky! Took about an hour to drain with the tap fully open but it didn't clog up like some of my previous methods have. Despite the fantasic filtering of the LauterHexe, I ran the wort through a mesh bag in the fermenter and ended up collecting about a handful of trub in there. If I recirculated the first litre this probably wouldn't be an issue but it will suck up some debris
Looks good Anil, I think I'll bite the bullet and splash out. An hour sounds like a long time though to drain the kettle... are you brewing 10gals?
Mark
Trust me when I say "DO NOT USE A SOLAR PUMP FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN WATER" :) did ye hear me or was I too far away ;D
Quote from: DEMPSEY on March 30, 2015, 02:00:09 PM
Trust me when I say "DO NOT USE A SOLAR PUMP FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN WATER" :) did ye hear me or was I too far away ;D
Heh Denpsey not to contradict you but I use mine for emptying my mash tun into my boiler. I pump the wort about two metres in to the top of the boiler from a bottom drain in my mash tun. On occassion it has clogged but only because I did not recirculate the first couple of litres of wort. Also it's worth noting (sorry for dodgy pun ;)) that when you finished with it you want to run it for about 20 minutes with 60 water. I had one previously pack up or so I thought but it was just stuck with wort. I submersed in boiling water for an hour then ran it for an hour in more boiling water when it freed up. Now I regularly clean it soon after use with a 20 min run in 60C water and all is good :)
Shanna
I know what your saying Shanna but if you re read your post all the reasons of unreliability that goes with using them is there. Great little pump but it will let you down in the middle of brew day easy enough. That's why I went for chuggers because although dear every brewer I asked who owned one said that they are the mutts nutts and will not fail you on brew day.
Quote from: DEMPSEY on March 30, 2015, 08:12:20 PM
I know what your saying Shanna but if you re read your post all the reasons of unreliability that goes with using them is there. Great little pump but it will let you down in the middle of brew day easy enough. That's why I went for chuggers because although dear every brewer I asked who owned one said that they are the mutts nutts and will not fail you on brew day.
Horses for courses and I agree 're the chugger as I have one also (thanks to your good self for organising the group buy) but I still use my humble solr pump. Since I started to clean it regularly I have had no problems. For transfer of the wort from the mash tun it does a stand-up job.
Shanna
Quote from: markc on March 30, 2015, 09:53:11 AM
Looks good Anil, I think I'll bite the bullet and splash out. An hour sounds like a long time though to drain the kettle... are you brewing 10gals?
Yeah an hour is pretty slow, I'm only brewing 23 litre batches so hopefully I can improve this. As you can see from the photo, there's quite a bit of trub covering the coil and without a whirlpool, hop spider or hop bags the flow is pretty restricted. If I was using leaf hops there wouldn't be an issue here, its the fine muck thats slowing things down.
A pump could be an option but wouldn't it end up sucking in excess trub by forcing it through the coils slits?
You don't need a pump to whirlpool. A paddle is entry level, stir like fùck for a few minutes try to get the momentum going. Wait up to 20 mins for break to drop out.
An upgrade is to put your paddle into a drill.
As John said Anil, you defo don't need a pump to get a decent whirlpool and cone of trub/hop material sitting nicely in the centre of the pot, although, turbulence from your kettle element might push it off centre a little. I just use a paddle and arm power, stir it til you get a good vortex going then leave it for 20 minutes to settle out. I would be hoping that the cone would sit nicely in the centre of the LauterHexe and the run off was nice and quick. Feck it, I'll get one and see!
2 other methods of reducing break.
Once chilled you could syphon off (I know this defeats the purpose of the new toy, but...)
Raise the coil from the bed of break so that it is not sitting in it.
Cheers lads! Will give the whirlpool a go see how it works out, didn't realise you could do it manually.
You can also use a mix of whole hops and pellet hops; the whole hops help to filter out the pellet hops and should help things to flow much faster.
-The larger Hexenthingy would also drain faster not only becasue of increased surface area but becasue in a kettle that size it would be bent over a few times and in a tighter curve the slits open up more in the curve.
Adam
I'm torn! Did a brew with a friend who uses these in his kettle and lauter tun (3 pot system) http://brewbuilder.co.uk/dx-hop-filter.html . Really impressed with it, anyone else use them?
@mark - I have the hop filter you listed. It's brilliant. I think there are some pics of it on my electric brewery build thread in this section of the forum. I wouldn't change it for the on in the OP, in fact I would still buy the one I have.
Go with the DX Hop Filter Mark, I'm not having fun with the lauter hex. Second time using it and was hoping to test the benefits of a whirlpool, but....one end of the f@%king coil unraveled its way out of the tee leaving me with no filter what so ever!!!! Fortunately I had some fine mesh bags handy. I'm p!ssed off I got it now!
Quote from: Ohnidog on April 07, 2015, 09:59:15 PM
Go with the DX Hop Filter Mark, I'm not having fun with the lauter hex. Second time using it and was hoping to test the benefits of a whirlpool, but....one end of the f@%king coil unraveled its way out of the tee leaving me with no filter what so ever!!!! Fortunately I had some fine mesh bags handy. I'm p!ssed off I got it now!
I feel like I've seen that DX Hop Filter Design somewhere before...
Adam
AleMan on the JBK forums made a VERY similar looking hop stopper a few years back; here's the only link I could find but if I remember correctly he went through several revisions.
http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=36613
Adam
Balls Anil. Send it back, that shouldn't happen. Ordered the DX so. I'll report back on how it fares. M
Am interested to hear how you get on with it. I have the alas bottom from THBC and for leaf hips it's fine but as soon as you throw a decent amount of pellets in the blocks up.
I wonder if my one could be pimped to the standard of the dx one.
Quote from: Ohnidog on April 07, 2015, 09:59:15 PM
Go with the DX Hop Filter Mark, I'm not having fun with the lauter hex. Second time using it and was hoping to test the benefits of a whirlpool, but....one end of the f@%king coil unraveled its way out of the tee leaving me with no filter what so ever!!!! Fortunately I had some fine mesh bags handy. I'm p!ssed off I got it now!
Is it still letting you down? Want to put a tap into my kettle but can never seem to see anything that will filter the pellet hops when I drain.
It works well as long as you tripple check the connections are secure but it is very slow. The first 10 litres usually run off pretty fast but you could be waiting another 30-40mins for the rest. It does result in super clear wort though, especially if you recirculate the initial runnings.
What I did the last time was, aerated while the FV was filling (airstone and aquarium pump) and then left it to finish draining while I did some cleaning up. When I came back it had pulled out every last drop of liquid and left behind a nice thick cake of trub.
One piece of advice I've been given to speed things up is to use leaf hops for bittering and pellets for aroma so the leaf hops will loosen the filter bed.
Quick update on the DX Hopfilter @anil and @ozbrewer. Delighted with it so far. Did a double brew day last Friday. Drained the kettle with absolutely clear wort into the fermenter. 23 litres in about 10 mins. This was a Berliner Weisse, so, only 10grams of leaf hops in there. The second was a Gose, same amount of hops because I don't want to inhibit lacto, but, this one took a lot longer drain, maybe 20 mins, still very clear. Not entirely sure why that would be. The only real difference was that the Berliner was not cooled and went to a cube at about 90c, the Gose I chilled to 30c with an immersion chiller before transferring to a fermenter. Manu on the forum here said the DX presents a problem with whirlpooled pellet hops in average amounts in that the cone post whirlpool blocks the DX... he advises a stand rather than whirlpool and using a portion of leaf for your bittering hops to create a filter as Anil mentioned. I'm brewing a IIPA soon with tonnes of pellet hops so, I'll let you know how that goes...
Mark
Cool, it would be great to know how your pellet hops go, as that is what I'll be using. Also, I'm wondering if the speed will be an issue if a pump is attached to the kettle, as you're basically pulling the liquid out through the filter.
@mark - glad it worked for you. I use leaf hops as I like how they create a filter for the cold break. I recirculate / whirlpool back into the kettle via my CFC. Just be careful of using too much protofloc or whirlfloc tabs as they can cause massive amount of cold break material and that can block your hop filter. Ask me how I know..... :-[ :-[ :-[
@molc ... a pump is my next purchase to recirc the mash and to transfer from the kettle a bit quicker. Before I had doubts about using a pump with the break and particulate i was getting out but not now. Oz, I tend to ere on the side of caution with whirlfloc as I've had some mares with it in the past too! A quarter tab is plenty for a 1:055 OG wort at 5 gallons.
Cheers,
Mark