SCI Jumbo Spice Ball Herb Infuser, 4.5-Inches

I bought this to put spices when cooking soup broth in a big pot. It works out great. Easy to clean. So far dishwasher safe. Perfect size and great price.

Good for what I intended it for -- an easy way to add hops to my boil, but not let all the 'gunk' get into the wort so it is easier to filter the wort into the carboy for fermentation.It's certainly big enough to hold a huge amount of hops (several ounces of pellet hops, haven't tried yet with whole hops, I imagine it would hold 2-3 oz, maybe 4 if you squeezed them in).Only thing I don't like is the chain isn't long enough to easily pull out of a 5 gallon boil. Will have to buy a fan-pull chain maybe to connect to it so I can easily pull the hop container out, add more hops to it, and put it back in the boil.

I bought this to steep large amount of herbs. It works great and is sturdy enough for purpose. Easier to use than screw together halves. Wire sort of fragile so you need to clean it gently with a very soft brush.

This is a nice tea/ spice ball, however it is huge. I did not read the size properly. I wanted a large size but not this large. This one is more for a restaurant or for very large pots. The quality seems sturdy. If you want a super large tea ball this is the one!

I purchased this to make large batches of iced tea with loose leaf tea that I purchase in bulk. The infuser worked great the first few times but on the second week of use the lid got stuck and neither I nor my husband could loosen it. So it went in to the trash, used tea leaves enacted. The twist lock frame is only about 1 ½ inches wide and runs the circumference of the ball, the rest of the infuser is metal mesh. There is not enough solid frame to hold onto when I was twisting off the top. Most of my grip was on the metal mesh which just flexes and twists so I could not generate enough force to open up the infuser. I tried everything, waiting until it cooled off, reheating it, prying with a screw driver. I think a patina must have developed on the metal that hindered the sliding of the metal.Iced Tea Solution:I found a "pasta" pot (IKEA) with a twist on lid with perforations on one side of the lid. I dump my loose leaf tea in to the pot with the water. When the tea is done steeping, I pour the tea through the perforations into my serving pitcher. The pot has a flared lip and the lid had two folded over lips, one on each side. When you twist the lid it secures to the pot so pouring is a breeze. Obviously this works best with tea that is whole leaf or cut into large pieces. The finely chopped stuff would flow right through the holes in the pot lid!

Ok, "Jumbo" is not quite the word I would use to describe this. "Massive", "Insane" or some other adjective would be more appropriate. Think small grapefruit when picturing the size of this.That said, it works reasonably well for what I bought it for, which is containing hops when brewing beer. Hops love to expand, so about an ounce in this gives them lots of room during the boil without them forming a dense mass like I have had happen in smaller balls. It contains the larger bits well enough, but the smaller ones do make their way out, still. Overall, it stops about 2/3rds of the hops from escaping.For mesh size, think a bit finer than your average kitchen strainer, but a bit coarser than a 1 cup tea ball.Overall, it is mostly adequate for my needs, except that the chain is not secured as it is shown in the vendors photo. It is on a stainless medallion that is fixed directly to the mesh, rather than a wire welded to the ring.

Works good, the wire mesh is a bit thin. I use this for shrimp shells to make seafood broth. I’m sure it would work well for anything else you want. It’s about the size of a baseball.

First problem is mesh is too coarse for loose tea. You get a layer of tea fragments on the bottom of your container.I tried to fix this by putting a basket coffee filter in it then the tea, which worked several times, but ended up unable to unscrew the top, and ruining the whole tea ball. OK I shouldn't have done this.Second problem is the hook on the end of the chain doesn't hook onto the lip of the pot I am boiling the water in, or anything else really, so it always falls in and I have to fish out the tea ball from hot water.I am looking for a different design.