DIY Hop Stopper (Kettle Screen & Pickup)

[WOP31]

So most of you have heard of the HopStopper, a Screen "pouch" for the bottom of your boil kettle to filter hops and what not out after your boil. While i am sure that the HopStopper is a wonderful product, it is also wonderfully expensive.

Here is my DIY Hop Stopper, total cost on this build was approximately $12-13. The parts required are as follows:

1 - Stainless wire mesh 12in x 24in. McMaster Carr Part Number: 9230T625 (Cost = $8.50 Shipped)
1 - 1/2in Male NPT x 1/2in Compression, Pipe Fitting, Bought at Local Hardware store for $2.79
1 - Stainless Worm Clamp (hose clamp), Have a ton of these sitting around so no cost added here.
1 - ~8 inch piece of 1/2in outer diameter copper tube. Bought large piece, approximating the cost at $1.50
As needed Stainless wire, 24AWG worked for me, Got this for free so no cost added.

On to the "how to" portion of this thread!

First started with the 12in x 24in piece of stainless mesh. I went with the 30x30 mesh size (30 squares (holes) per inch), I was going to go with an 18x18, I am so glad that i didn't. Not having much experience with Mesh sizes I kinda just guessed at which one to order, I could have gone a little finer, Say 36x36. But this will work just fine.


Next I folded it in half so that i had a 12in x 12in square of SS mesh,


Then i folded the edges over approximately 1/4 of an inch and tapped them flat with a hammer, I then folded them again about 1/8th of an inch to completely hide the rough edges and reduce the amount of tiny little wires poking me in the hand as I handled this thing.


I got some 24 AWG (.020 diameter) Stainless wire and laced up the edges (well...one anyway, before i realized that it sucks stitching with SS wire). I will go back at another time and finish stitching the rest. It is more than likely overkill, but i like to build equipment to last and i figured that it would add to the durability of the unit.


With all the pieces ready to go:


Assembled the Dip tube and put the worm clamp on there, I had already bent my dip tube before i took these pictures, but you can bend your to what ever suits your needs. Mine makes a gradual curve down to the center of the kettle.


I then installed the dip tube in the wire mesh, and formed the mesh around the copper as best i could to get it to close up the major holes when i tightened the clamp down. I also folded the corners of the pouch down to allow it to fit better in the bottom of my kettle.


And finally installed in the kettle! "Like a Glove!"



What these are all about is Surface area, The more you can get yourself the better. The only thing i see is that i may drill a hole or two laterally across the end of the dip tube if i feel that the screen is pressing against the tube opening, but that is one of the reasons i took it down at an angle instead of taking it down at a 90deg angle and straight down.

I haven used this yet, at the time of this post, but i will be using it by the end of the week so I will post up the results when I do.

[BeerBilly]

I like it Wop.We're having a fuck of a time with the homemade hop bag type thing because a half pound of flower hops takes up LOTS of room.it would be easier just to pour them in like we did with pellets.

[mr x]

I just finished building one based on your design. Only difference is that I used a 1/2 x 3/4 x 3/4 tee. How does your design do with pellet hops?

[Jekster]

I built one of these at WOP's house actually. Pretty simple design and it seems like it will be effective. Can't wait to brew a batch and actually try it out. =D

[Ó Flannagáin]

I need to upgrade mine, I'll be doing this same one.

[WOP31]

You definitely should man, for the cost and ease of making, it is well worth it, and i haven't even used it yet.

But the sell the HopStopper for $60, and like i said I am sure that it is a quality product, but making it for under $15 is the way to go for me.

Jekster you should take a picture of your's and post it up here. You made yours a little different if I remember right. I would like to get a picture of House's too to put up here. He made a crazy shaped one. I will try to get him to post up a picture or e-mail me one.

[Jekster]

I can post it later today after I get home from work.

[WOP31]

Here is a friend of ours that made a hopstopper the other day with us. He went with a sort of "tent" design. The surface area is pretty big on it and it has a really good size pocket in it to collect wort from. I was glad that he came back over tonight to finish up the final touches on it so i could post up some pictures of it. To be able to show that there are many ways to adapt this to what ever design you come up with.

[WOP31]

I did the first run with the hopstopper tonight. And all i really have to say is that this thing is really F*ing Awesome. First it reduced the dead space in my kettle from 1/2-3/4 of a gallon to less than a pint.

It did an awesome job filtering, I have never seen wort flow so clear out of my kettle an chiller. My old set-up (a bazooka Tube) would start to get clogged up about half way through draining my kettle. With this DIY Hopstopper the wort flowed smoothly all the way to the last drop. I only had two ounces of hops, one pellet and one whole leaf, in this batch but i could tell that this thing will be able to handle what ever i throw at it.

Here is picture of the inside of the kettle after we were done running the wort through the pump/chiller.





You can see that it filtered all the hops and hot break material that was in the wort.

I HIGHLY recomend that anyone who is making new filter for their kettle make one of these.

[Ó Flannagáin]

This is awesome dude. I'll probably go build one tomorrow