Equipment Review: Strainer and Stand

For Christmas I was lucky to receive a Strainer and Stand, from The Home Brew Shop.

Hop Strainer clipped on top of bucket

I have a standard 25L fermenter bucket and also a 30L bottling bucket, both of which the stand clips on it very securly.

The bag has 4 slits that go through the top of the stands arms, was a bit fiddly to find if it was inside out or not, so I made sure the seam was on the inside, although some hop debris did collect around it washing it in a bowl of hot water easily removed any Klingons.

In order to strain my wort I used a sanitised jug and poured a jug full at a time into the strainer. Once all the wort and hops were out of my boiler pan I decided to pass the top up water through the strainer that had all the hops still in place.
I must say that I was concerned (as once I passed water through it did pull quite tights) if this would split the bag however as the recipe used 50g it wasn't enough to do so.

I wouldn't want to put any more than this in the strainer, also the hops were leaf hops not pellets so I'll have to keep this in mind if I use pellet hops next time.

Once the required amount of water was in the fermenter the strainer was just about touching the top of the wort, but it was already slightly aerated.

Emptying the strainer was simple, just turned the strainer inside out and the hops plopped into the bin. I set aside the strainer in my boil pot until I finished aerating and pitching the yeast.

I know there are other methods of straining, many people just simply use a coarse colander and I've read into hop spiders,bazookas or filters that can be directly used within the boiling wort.

I've been really impressed with how clear the packaged beers have been. I force carbed 1 TAD and a week after initial carbonation you can see straight though the glass once poured. Something of a luxury that I never have had before. An instant success which I look forward to using next time.

The only thing is that it could be a little stronger and also larger inner dimensions, just so it could be comfortable in holding the hops without the fear of it splitting or ripping of the arms, this is only minor as I wouldn't think I'd put much more hops than this in one batch, I like hoppy beers but not overly hoppy.

4 1/2 Bottles out of 5

What do you use for straining hops/wort, if anything? Have you noticed any improvements using one compared to not?

Until next time......Happy Brewing