False Bottom for MLT - What am I doing wrong???

I've used a 10gal round cooler with a SS braid for 2 years with no troubles. However, the braid got pretty beat up, and it was time to replace it. I figured that I would upgrade and try out a real false bottom, specifically this model from Williams Brewing:

False Bottom

I tried it out this weekend, and lautering was a nightmare. I ran off more than a 2 gallons (slowly) during vorlauf, and I kept getting big pieces of husk coming through, no matter what. I had to rig up some complicated filtering system and ended up with several grams of crushed husks in the filter bag by the time I got all my wort into the kettle.

So what am I doing wrong? The FB is designed for my size cooler and seems held down fairly well. Is there anything I can do to get this to work better, or this a fact of life with these things?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I had a stuck sparge the first time I use my false bottom. I got one of those stainless steel scrubbing pads and stuck it under the FB at the pick up tube and haven't had a problem since.

I also try to keep from disturbing the FB or pushing any grains under it or through the holes when I stir the mash

I got a similar one from Northern. I'm not sure there's enough curvature on the bottom. That impedes flow into the pickup once the grain weight is on it. I ended up taking a file to it and creating a few notches in the fitting to guarantee that flow into the pickup couldn't be interrupted.

i have the same thing and tried it for the first time over the weekend for my pumpkin amber ale and it got stuck overt and over and over. i am going to try and use the stainless steel scrubby this week whe n i do a honey wheat and see if it works any better...so far though NOT impressed.

It has worked real well for me. I did a pumpkin ale with canned pumpkin and oats last week and didn't have any problems at all. I had to cut the scrubby in half because it was a bit too thick and pushed the false bottom up off of the bottom of the cooler.

I was using a braid, but have switched to the false bottom and I like it a lot better. It allowed me to switch to fly sparging and my efficiency has come up quite a bit.

Thanks for the replies. I may try the stainless steel scrubby trick, that sounds like it might help. If not, I will go back to the braid or a kettle screen, and just continue to batch sparge.