Maximum hop load help

[Spurdie]

Hello all. Im new to this forum. I just graduated from ABG, and Im apprenticing with Fred Scheer at Boscos in Nashville. As a homework assignment he asked me to figure out the maximum hop load of a seven bbl kettle. 8 bbl boil, 7 bbl knock out. Can anyone help me out? DME kettle. Hop Pellets. Thanks.

[lhall]

Look at the trub/ hop pile left after knock-out, and estimate how big that could get before you are pulling it into the piping to the heat exhanger.

[Spurdie]

Thanks for the reply. Is there a way to calculate this other than guessing?

[grassrootsvt]

one brewer told me that he had figured out how many pounds of hops he could knock out without clogging his heat exchanger by clogging his heat exchanger...

i've been able to run out nearly 20 pounds of hops in a 7bbl austin kettle.
it's all dependent upon your trub formation and how slowly you run off...as well as when and how you cut your runnings... to go big with the hops, you'll end up losing a solid single bbl of beer to the trub...

[nohandslance]

Trub cone volume/shape is all going to be based on your WP/Kettle design. Wort flow from pump to kettle and the angle of your inlet pipe, degree of angle of your tank bottom,and position of you outlet pipe from kettle, this will all factor into you target volume. Ask you instructor if he is looking at max IBU's out of the system or just max trub volume. IHall said it best. observe trub pile until it starts to draw into outlet at end of knockout. If you need more IBU's, use Higher alpha hop varieties, which will cut down on hop quantities and lessen the trub pile volume.
Good luck and send some samples

[Michael Murphy]

Thats a tough problem to solve, Ive noticed that bittering hops can form a better trub pile than finishing hops, therefore if you wanted to load up on bittering hops you may get to squeeze more in than finish hops, so it would be such a variable issue the only way to know is to push it until you reach the maximum. Even then you can stop the run off and take what you get. yet still you can add a wort filter or a hop back to get all the wort through with lots more hops in the kettle. Also, degree of boiling, boiling time, beer type can all factor in on the trub formation, and its a fact that no 2 whirlpools are exactly the same, so if you for some reason mathmatically solved the problem it wouldnt be a standard in the brewing sciences, it would only apply to the kettle and your brewing styles.

I have a 25hl kettle and my trub pile breaks up even when I put in 5 kg of finishing hops, I still do it but stop the run off once I see large amounts of hops going to the HE. The most I have ever put in the kettle and got away with out the hop back was perhaps 9 kg (with about 200 liters loss on the bottom). With the hop back I have put in over 20 kg in the kettle...(and another 20 kg in the hop back) twas hoppy indeed...

Can you tell me how much beer hop pellets soak up durring dry hopping? thats should be a reasonable problem to solve?...