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Kettle Dip Tube and Whirlpooling

This week its a quick video all by myself. I wanted to explore the influence of a kettle dip tube and whirlpooling. So this week I do some tests in a partially filled kettle with and without dip tube configurations to see if a dip tube will interfere with a good whirlpool and trub cone formation.

The theory goes that if you achieve a great whirlpool in your kettle all the hop debris and the break material will settle in a nice cone in the center of your kettle. Then all you have to do is siphon out clear wort from the side of the kettle. Its a great theory, but it never worked for me that way. Maybe that’s why I don’t do it anymore. I always had a big fluffy pile of stuff in the base of the kettle. I had no clear cone or edge to siphon from. I moved on to other means of keeping it all out of the fermentor (mostly hop sacks nowadays).

You’ll see in the video I try four different kettle setups. I have a clean and smooth kettle with no fittings or dip tubes in it. I then use a kettle with just he coupler in there, then a coupler plus a dip tube to the center. Then a coupler plus a dip tube to the edge of the kettle. To conduct the whirlpooling test I used 5-6 gallons of water, 2 ounces of black malt and a wine whip on a drill to speed up the stirring process.

I was quite shocked to discover that regardless of the dip tube set up, I got a good cone/collection of the grain in the center of the kettle every time. When there was some hardware in there the cone was a little mis-shapen but it still would have worked for siphoning. Now maybe grain isn’t a good substitute for true hop and cold break trub. Or maybe there just wasn’t enough. But from these little tests I don’t think the dip tube was the issue before.

Oh well. It was fun to experiment a bit and it was easy to do.

What’s your experience with whirlpooling for a trub cone? Does it work for you?

BREW ON!

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2 Comments

  1. JF

    Get a new pick-up tube that draws from the sidewall of the kettle. You’re picking up directly at the cone which would defeat the purpose of creating a cone. There’s a lot of them out there but here’s an example.
    https://www.morebeer.com/products/big-dipper-12-pickup-tube.html
    http://www.bargainfittings.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=46&product_id=151

    Alternatively, flip the end of your pick up tube so that the short end is on attached to the kettle fitting and lean the pick down to the kettle floor, that will help too.

  2. Paul Birm

    Can you tell me where you got the mixer in your drill?

    Thanks for the video as well

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