Considerations for building a whole cone capable brew house

[Junkyard]

Hi all, I know this has been talked about a little on the forum but I am looking for specific answers.

We're in the process of finding the right equipment for a 10 bbl electric brew house. We are 3bbl now and the only time we've used whole cone was when we filled our mash tun with wet hops and ran wort in and steeped it. That worked well but was hoping to figure out a good way to add them in the whirlpool or directly in the kettle to streamline things if we are going to be doing this often.

What things specifically would you look for in a brew house to better accommodate brewing with whole hops? perhaps a false bottom in the kettle? A separate whirlpool vessel with a false bottom? A separate hop back vessel with a false bottom? Would just a hop dam work in the kettle or would that clog?

I'm basically wondering what works for you and what would you recommend?

[DageraadBen]

It does not have to be complicated. Whole hops are actually way easier to separate from the wort than pellets. I visited a small brewery in the UK that had modified a stainless steel colander to to cover the kettle drain and filter out the hops. No whirlpool required.

[ChristianSA]

Hi all, I know this has been talked about a little on the forum but I am looking for specific answers.

We're in the process of finding the right equipment for a 10 bbl electric brew house. We are 3bbl now and the only time we've used whole cone was when we filled our mash tun with wet hops and ran wort in and steeped it. That worked well but was hoping to figure out a good way to add them in the whirlpool or directly in the kettle to streamline things if we are going to be doing this often.

What things specifically would you look for in a brew house to better accommodate brewing with whole hops? perhaps a false bottom in the kettle? A separate whirlpool vessel with a false bottom? A separate hop back vessel with a false bottom? Would just a hop dam work in the kettle or would that clog?

I'm basically wondering what works for you and what would you recommend?

We use both pellets and whole cones in our kettle, depending on which format is best. You just need a little strainer at the bottom where the hop flowers will settle. If you already have a WP, you can always add a simple hopback after the WP.

I would recommend you building a brewery capable of using both while cones and pellets. There can be surprisingly big differences in the quality of the hops depending on how they are processed, even if it is the same type and harvest. You can get some really stale whole cone hops sometimes, and I often find pellets to impart a harsher flavor when, which is no surprise when you consider what we sometime pick out manually from our whole cones (thread, cigarette butts, a lot of sticks, paper & plastic) is ground up together with the hop cones.

-Christian

[Junkyard]

Would putting a false bottom in a whirlpool vessel be a bad idea? Not sure how the trun would pile up with a false bottom down there..

[Aaron Taubman]

Lots of breweries in the UK handle whole cone. The whirlpool in the kettle and then pass the beer through a dedicated hopback or through the cleaned out mashtun using the false bottom in there. Its not complicated.

The only things to keep in mind is freshness like suggested above and the fact that whole cone holds onto lots more extract than pellets. We brew to higher gravity and then rinse out the hopback with hot water to recovery some of the extract. This works well for UK style low ABV beers, not sure how that is going to work with your 8% IPA's and the like.

Cheers
Aaron

[TunMonkey]

Strainer bag

Just put them in weighted strainer bags and tie some string to the top of the bag so you can pull them for whirlpool (they'll stop the rotation). Getting into a 10bbl kettle to remove cones is going to be a huge PITA regardless of whether you successfully kept them out of your drain during knockout.

I guess a lot depends on the drain design on your kettle though.

[beerguy1]

Just put them in weighted strainer bags and tie some string to the top of the bag so you can pull them for whirlpool (they'll stop the rotation). Getting into a 10bbl kettle to remove cones is going to be a huge PITA regardless of whether you successfully kept them out of your drain during knockout.

I guess a lot depends on the drain design on your kettle though.

Or if OSHA sees you do that without a confined entry permit you might as well get a big check out

[TGTimm]

Would putting a false bottom in a whirlpool vessel be a bad idea? Not sure how the trun would pile up with a false bottom down there..

You won't have a whirlpool anymore--just a hopback.