Fantastish German Hopfilter/Mashfilter

[biertourist]

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

[markc]

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

[Ohnidog]

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

[markc]

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

[DEMPSEY]

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

[Shanna]

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

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

[DEMPSEY]

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.

[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.

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

[Ohnidog]

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?

[johnrm]

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.

[markc]

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!

[johnrm]

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.

[Ohnidog]

Cheers lads! Will give the whirlpool a go see how it works out, didn't realise you could do it  manually.

[biertourist]

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

[markc]

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?