That guy sits there on top of your brew kettle, and you chuck leaf hops down his gullet at your usual intervals. When the boil's done just lift him out and drain him. No muss, no fuss.
The hop spider is just a piece of tapered PVC pipe, three long bolts, some washers and nuts, a mesh bag and a big hose clamp to hold it on, as you can see here.
An added bonus of using the hop spider is that you can keep the lid on to get a more aggressive boil (if that's your thing), but you don't get boilovers, because the spider keeps the lid raised a bit.
Strictly speaking, I didn't really need to make this, I just saw the "how-to" at BYO.com a few weeks ago and thought why not. People who have trouble with clogging, or getting too much hop gunk into their fermentor might find this useful, as it does away with most of that. I do just fine with the Bazooka screen in my kettle. As I said, this was just for fun. One thing I did learn though, if you really want it to work right, make sure you're using a type of PVC that doesn't melt in boiling wort. Woops. Back to the drawing board I guess!
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| FAIL! |
[Edit] After checking around a bit, it seems advisable not to use standard PVC in contact with food/beverages above 70C (158F), as it will begin to melt -- duh! and possibly release toxins into whatever it's in contact with. More info can be found in English HERE, or in Japanese HERE. Be safe, or be sorry people!
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