I just finished building my mash tun and tested for leaks. I used a single braded line for lautering. The drain on my cooler sits about 1/2" above the floor of the cooler. What am I to do about the mash that sits on the bottom of the cooler after all has drained from the spigot? What effect will that have on the amount of water I use at mash in? Tilting the tun will disturb the grain bed and I don't want that, do I? Thanks.
Mash Tun question
- Thread starter SocalNat
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SilverZero
Well-Known Member
That's called "equipment loss." You can include it in your mash calculator (try Green Bay Rackers), but you'll be sparging until you get your boil volume anyway, so it shouldn't make much difference. With the actual grains that fill that space, you won't be losing anything noticeable.
jiggs_casey
Well-Known Member
You should be able to tilt it to some degree. The grain bed will obviously, 'shift' slightly to the lower side but, not enough to worry about. Like SilverZero said, you're going to be sparging until you get your full boil volume anyway...
danorocks17
Well-Known Member
I tilt mine after it has run off for a little while, by then the grain bed has settled enough that the shift shouldnt disturb it
When I built my mash tun out of a cooler I used a 45 degree elbow to lower my manifold down to the bottom of the cooler. After some pvc adjustments I have roughly 1/8 of an inch off the bottom of the cooler from my manifold.
If you are batch sparging I don't think shifting the grain bed a little will be a problem, you're going to stir up the grain bed after adding your sparge water anyway
SilverZero
Well-Known Member
The grain bed acts as a filter for the water to run through, and ideally it will settle evenly and let water flow through more uniformly vs. forming channels, which keep the water from rinsing out sugars from the grains away from the channels. If you're batch sparging, just stir it up well after adding the sparge water, then let it settle for 5 minutes before draining again (vorlaufing as necessary, of course).
Shifting the bed while it's draining might collapse the uniformity causing channeling. So goes the myth. It's really more of an issue with fly sparging because you're running a low volume at a constant rate, instead of just basically roughing the sugars out of the grains when you add the sparge water and mix it up.
SocalNat
Well-Known Member
That makes sense. Channeling at the end of lautering isn't much of an issue since the grainbed has already filtered all of the water. I won't worry about it then. Thanks all.
