Hop Bag Holder (Part II)

Mixed opinions about the hop bag I built.  My first impression was of immediate disgust.  Right off the bat, I realized only 1/4 of the bag was submerged during a 5-7 gallon boil.  Granted my kettle is 15 gallons, but I’ll have to engineer a different cross bar to drop the bag further down.  Second, because of this, there was a bit of hop material on the exposed part of the hop bag, which must have lowered my hop utilization.  Lastly, I just felt dirty using it.  There is something gratifying about tossing the hops straight into the boil.  On the positive tip though, the hop bag did the trick.  I was able to drain the entire kettle into the fermenter, with only about an inch of trub left.  I’m curious to see how it handles an IPA.