Pellet Hops Clogged Blichman False Bottom

Good Morning Brewers !!

We were pumping 12 gallons of Belgian quad wort into the fermentor and the flow through the pump completely stopped. At first we thought the ball valve was plugged but were unable to clear it. Eventually we had to siphon the wort from the top of the brew kettle. Then we discovered that the false bottom was completely clogged by the pellet hops!!

This is the first time we had brewed with pellet hops and in this case it was only 2 ounces of the total of six ounces of hops. The other four were leaf hops.

Check out the attached photo and you'll see the false bottom was completely plugged !!

If others have had this experience... please comment !

I wonder if the hopblocker works in conjunction with the false bottom. Your mash tun doubles as the kettle?

And this is why I am a HUGE fan of hop bags.  The hops stay in their bag and never mess up your false bottom, or your plate chiller in my case. 

+1 on the hop bags.  However, don't try to substitute a grain bag for pellet hops.  It sucks when you pull out the bag and there are no hops in it!  Trust me, I know!!

Scott Ickes said:

+1 on the hop bags.  However, don't try to substitute a grain bag for pellet hops.  It sucks when you pull out the bag and there are no hops in it!  Trust me, I know!!

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I tried giant tea balls for a while and had the same problem.  I had to use a bunch of them (hop swelling, etc) and one of them would pop open in the boil EVERY dang time. 

Believe it or not, it's actually easier to clean pellet hops out of the hop bags than leaf.  The leaves get stuck in every seam.

You don't BOIL with the false bottom installed. READ the manual. It is for mashing only. It will greatly effect the heat distribution if you leave it in and you will super heat the space under the false bottom leading to scorching, burning, and possibly damage the pot. Lets not forget your wasting propane too!

To the subject of hop & grain bags.....cleaning after brew is simply a PIA. Just untie, turn the bag inside out when emptying, rinse to get the slime off, drop hop or grain bags into a 1/2 gallon pail of PBW for a few days, remove from the green murk, rinse both inside and out, and soak in clean PBW. When they look pretty clean and your wife isn't watching, place them in your front loading washer with an ounce of PBW for a short cycle. Rinse again in tap water, just to make sure they are rinsed. Hang to dry. Front loading washers need special cleaning occasionally, PBW does a good job. That was my explanation when I got caught. She is finally learning that most everything we own has a potential practical use in brewing.

I use this procedure for grain bags using whole hops, not hop bags. You can get several uses out of them. The nice nylon drawstring hop bags do rinse and clean up far more easily than grain bags.

RiverBrewer said:

To the subject of hop bags.....cleaning after brew is simply a PIA. Just untie, turn the bag inside out when emptying, rinse to get the slime off, drop hop bags into a 1/2 gallon pail of PBW for a few days, remove from the green murk, rinse both inside and out, and soak in clean PBW. When they look pretty clean and your wife isn't watching, place them in your front loading washer with an ounce of PBW for a short cycle. Rinse again in tap water, just to make sure they are rinsed. Hang to dry. Front loading washers need special cleaning occasionally, PBW does a good job. That was my explanation when I got caught. She is finally learning that most everything we own has a potential practical use in brewing.

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I do this also!