This evaluation is by Homebrew Finds Contributor Brad Probert. Brad is an engineer, skilled homebrewer and skilled reviewer. Seize a hyperlink to Brad’s web site on the finish of this evaluation.
BouncerMD “Mac Daddy” Inline Filter
As standard as unfiltered beer is true now, there are nonetheless plenty of occasions within the brewing course of whenever you wish to filter your in-process beer to some extent. For me, it’s hop trub when transferring from the kettle to the fermentor. Dry hopping also can get you undesirable particles when transferring into your keg. You’ve received course of choices like whirlpooling or gear additions like bazooka screens for inside your kettle. The Bouncer filter is another choice you’ll be able to add to your toolbox.
The Bouncer filter is sort of a miniature model of a house water filter. There’s a plastic housing that has inlet and outlet ports, and a transparent plastic physique that holds the stainless mesh filter display screen and screws onto the primary housing. The filter display screen is product of chrome steel and nylon, and is available in two completely different mesh sizes. The coarse filter is 20 squares per inch (915 microns), and the positive filter is 50 squares per inch (305 microns).
The Bouncer itself additionally is available in two sizes- Regular and Mac Daddy. The Regular measurement comes with barbed fittings to hook up your 3/8” ID switch hose. The Mac Daddy comes with two units of fittings- one for 3/8” ID hose and the opposite 1/2″ ID hose so you’ll be able to choose no matter measurement matches your siphon or brew kettle valve. The bigger Mac Daddy filter additionally provides you 224% extra filter floor space than the bottom mannequin.
The filter unit is rated for temperatures as much as 150F. Meaning it’s good post-chilling, however not appropriate for the new inlet aspect right into a plate chiller for instance. One other artistic use of the filter is as a Randall to infuse hops or different ingredient flavors into your beer when serving. Extra on that in my fingers on trial beneath.
Test Pricing, Assessment Continues Under:
Substitute Gaskets
Arms on Assessment
The filter components screwed collectively simply, and importantly for tools like this, there have been no leaks. I used it on batches utilizing 3/8” hose and 1/2″ hose and had no points swapping out the barbed fittings and getting them tightened up with Teflon tape for no leaks. Every thing cleaned up nice, rinsing out very simply with a sprayer hose.
For me, I have already got a large mesh strainer I exploit when transferring beer from kettle into my fermentor. This has labored nice for me, and serves twin function of breaking apart the beer and letting it splash down into the fermentor, which I rely as my “oxygenation of wort”. My strainer does an ideal job at filtering out hop residue and trub from the fermentor, so I didn’t experiment with that in my trial. Because the mesh measurement is identical, I’m assured the Bouncer would do an equally nice job at filtering. Complete floor space would possibly require a pause in wort switch to scrub the filter for a 5 gallon batch.
I did use the filter when transferring from fermentor to keg. The mesh measurement isn’t positive sufficient to filter out something like yeast particles, and because the cumbersome hops reside was already taken care of by my strainer when transferring into the fermentor, there wasn’t plenty of residue within the Bouncer. I additionally chilly crash within the fermentor earlier than transferring to keg, and I discovered that even an IPA that had 2 oz. pellet hops dry hop in fermentor was primarily taken care of with chilly crashing. There was some hop residue within the filter, however not huge quantities. It would’ve caught extra stuff had I been dry hopping with entire leaf hops, or had I not chilly crashed within the fermentor earlier than transferring to the keg.
The BouncerMD as a Hop Randall
There was one other use for the Bouncer that sounded distinctive that I needed to check out. They promote utilizing it as a Randallizer. I had an IPA that was sadly missing in hops “zing”, so I threw some pellets contained in the internal display screen. I then hooked this as much as the faucet spout with a hose. Once I opened the faucet, beer would move via the hose, into the filter housing previous the hops, after which out the opposite finish, to which I may direct into my cup. It did impart hop zing, however I had plenty of issues. I’ll go a few of what I discovered on to you so you’ll be able to study from my errors.
First off, because of the growth of hop pellets in fluid/carbonation, they advocate solely filling the internal filter about 10% of the best way. I discovered that out too late and crammed it 50% of the best way and the hops expanded and ended up blocking my move after some time. I additionally received some hop residue in my beer (sufficient to provide it a notable inexperienced tinge). I believe subsequent time I’d use entire leaf hops to keep away from the positive pellet mud giving me an excessive amount of hop taste. I used this on my kegerator with normal rear-sealing taps. The backpressure with the Bouncer related precipitated the system to purge/leak beer out of the drain gap on the tap, resulting in a multitude on prime of the kegerator. Subsequent time, I’d use my ahead sealing taps that don’t have this leak path.
Speaking with the Bouncer crew, they’ve had good outcomes utilizing it with vanilla beans and citrus peels. Additionally they famous that the entire course of could make the beer foamy, so that they really helpful turning down the dispense strain on the beer as nicely. The Bouncer as a Randallizer positively confirmed potential and I believe with my classes discovered from my first trial, I’d do this once more.
Conclusions
In abstract, the filter is an effective choice to filter particles when transferring from kettle to fermentor. It didn’t show too helpful in filtering from fermentor post-cold-crash to keg. And the Randallizer operate seems to have some attention-grabbing potential, it simply takes some care to set issues up correctly for it to work.
Test Pricing
Substitute Gaskets
Extra Images
Particular Due to Bouncer for offering the unit used for analysis on this evaluation.
By Brad Probert. Try Brad’s web site – beersnobby.com
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