farny
Member
I've brewed all grain for almost a year now and have been using the 5gal cooler mash tun with stainless braid with no issues. Two brews ago I decided I wanted to squeeze a few more efficiency points out so I switched to the cooler false bottom from morebeer.com I also decided to rig up a gravity system so I could try fly sparging. My first brew ingredients:
7.5 lbs of 2 row
1lb carafoam
1lb crystal 15
I added 12 quarts of water to make a mash temp of 152.
Everything was going fine until I go to vorlauf when I cracked the valve and a little comes out then it stops completely. Not even a drip comes out. I tried everything: mash out, blowing in the tube, stirring, blowing water into the tube nothing would un-stuck the mash. I ended up having to transfer the mash into another cooler then clean the false bottom and it worked the second time.
My second brew was very similar ingedients and the same exact problem. Couldn't unstuck the mash had to transfer into another cooler but even then it didnt un stuck the mash so I pulled out my old stainless braid and that did the trick.
I'm frustrated and put off that spending the extra money to improve my system has led to disaster. Any advice?
The false bottom is connected to the valve with some 3/8" silicone tubing. After the valve I have 3ft of 3/8" tubing into my boil kettle.
Thanks for any advice! Love the forums!
7.5 lbs of 2 row
1lb carafoam
1lb crystal 15
I added 12 quarts of water to make a mash temp of 152.
Everything was going fine until I go to vorlauf when I cracked the valve and a little comes out then it stops completely. Not even a drip comes out. I tried everything: mash out, blowing in the tube, stirring, blowing water into the tube nothing would un-stuck the mash. I ended up having to transfer the mash into another cooler then clean the false bottom and it worked the second time.
My second brew was very similar ingedients and the same exact problem. Couldn't unstuck the mash had to transfer into another cooler but even then it didnt un stuck the mash so I pulled out my old stainless braid and that did the trick.
I'm frustrated and put off that spending the extra money to improve my system has led to disaster. Any advice?
The false bottom is connected to the valve with some 3/8" silicone tubing. After the valve I have 3ft of 3/8" tubing into my boil kettle.
Thanks for any advice! Love the forums!