Recircluating No Sparge Mash Tun

I'm thinking of giving the no sparge technique a try as mentioned in this post.

I have the same cooler and converted it to a batch sparge mash tun as shown in this post. Although I lost the braid and have to redo that.

Since I have to redo the braid anyway should I go with a manifold instead of does the braid work well for this setup?

I use the braid with no problem. I think with the volume of water/wort being recirculated with the no-sparge process, a manifold would make little difference. I did change from a 1/2" braid to the larger, water heater hose braid and that helped with kinks and slow draining.

I do recirculating no sparge brewing with my cooler. I have a braid, but I use a tee and run the braid around the cooler and to the tee on each side.

I have some stiff copper wire coiled inside the braid to keep it from compressing from the weight of the grain. So far that's been good to me, even with 30 lbs of grain in my cooler.

I have never used a manifold so I'll be interested to hear the opinions. I love no sparge brewing, though. Beers just keep getting better. Right now I see no reason to change.

I am moving from a traditional 3-tier fly-sparge rig to a two vessel no-sparge/batch-sparge set-up. I have a couple new kettles on order and a few misc parts to finish things up. My system will utilize no-sparge for "small" beers and batch sparge for higher gravity stuff.

I'll be kettle mashing (direct fired and recirculated) with a full false bottom. I would think that a manifold might reduce channeling during recirc and improve mash efficiency a little, but may not matter. I am excited to try a new method and shave a little time off brew day and will try to post my results as I run through a couple batches and learn what works for me. Good luck...