As with almost everything brewing related, one simply thing often leads to a chain reaction of adjustments. My preference for using only whole leaf hops came to an abrupt end when Hops Direct stopped importing whole leaf. Since 95% of my recipes are euro-styles, I am now resigned to using pellets, of which euro varieties are widely available. Of course my brewing system is designed for whole leaf, so one of the more pressing adjustments is how to keep trub from making it to the cellar. I think most brewers will tell you that you are better off transferring clear wort to your fermenter, though I understand there is an argument for having “some” trub in the wort as a fermentation aid”. In my ‘old’ way of brewing, the whole leaf hops clung to my kettle screen, creating a perfect filter for the trub. Now I have no screen at all (for fear of it becoming trub-clogged). For me, the way to resolve issues like this usually has me researching what breweries do to address the issue and it seems most use a whirlpool action to pile the trub (and spent hops, if those are free-floating as well) into the center of the kettle before drawing off clear wort nearer the sidewall.

My kettle is fairly large (31G) so for my more common 10G batches, the dimensions of the finished brew has the pool of wort being wider than it is tall. The standard 5 to 7gpm pumps were not creating much of a whirlpool action. Yes, there was a “whirlpool” but it was pretty lame. I jumped up to at Chugger Max TCP pump which runs at 17gpm. I noticed the inflow of wort was not enough to keep up with the pump (this due to most standard fittings being 1/2″ OD) coupled with other fittings along the way which are much narrower. After a fair amount of monkeying with it, I was able to change out enough of the fittings to get the whirlpool I want. I’ve included a link to a video I made of a recent test run here. Hopefully you can open this… https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JmBtNV0E5Zk7tB6D9PL1vTVTXwPny0Y6/view?usp=sharing

Funny to note that when I’m pumping hot fluids I’m still getting some cavitation in the pump head but when the liquid cools to about 170F the cavitation stops. So I may need to figure out how to address that issue next (change out from my counter-flow chiller to using an immersion chiller?).

Hmm….with a way to whirlpool in the kettle, I guess I can start making those super hoppy American style IPA’s now eh? (just kidding)