Sparge Arm for Regtangular Cooler

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chode720

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I am starting to piece the idea together and sketch out a design for a recirculating mash system. However, I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out how I can add a sparge arm/recirculation to my mash tun.

My cooler is a 48 qt rectangular cooler. I dont want to switch over to a round cooler if I dont have to spend the extra money. I love the space my cooler has, and the drain on it is 1/4 inch, so I get a nice slow flow rate from it.

I dont mine drilling holes or attaching anything to the lid and I know that a rotating sparge arm isnt necessary. I am not too concerned about efficiency as I can easily get 75-80% out of the system.

My thoughts are to run two parallel lengts of CPVC or copper tubing (CPVC b/c its cheaper) and drilling small holes every inch or so the wort and sparge water can just drip through the whole tubing. My understanding is that channeling wont be much of an issues if I keep the water above the grain bed and have the drips spread out.

I am also planning on using a small diameter tube to keep the pressure up so the water dispurses even, or close to it, throughout the tubing.

Has anyone tried something similar to these or have any other suggestions on how I can do this?


Thanks!
 
this is what I use.

MVC-830F.JPG


MVC-832F.JPG


Those picture are with it being used in my 55 gallon MLT but it also fits into my 20 gallon cooler MLT the same way. It just sits on top of the grain bed and the wort come out the top.
 
Lioks nice! Do you use it to recirculate and fly sparge?

yes, because of it having the full size holes I can recirculate and not worry about pits of grain plugging it up.
In those pics I was actually recirculating the wort thru my flash boiler to do a "mash-out".
 
yes, because of it having the full size holes I can recirculate and not worry about pits of grain plugging it up.
In those pics I was actually recirculating the wort thru my flash boiler to do a "mash-out".

Nice! Thanks for the info. I think this is what I will do. I just need to add a spout to my HLT, buy a pump, and build this CPVC thing, and will be recirculating in no time :)

Would you suggest elevating it a couple inches above grain bed or has everything worked well for you so far?
 
well with the holes facing up it's elevating it's self in a way and like you said in the first post the flow is low. It works great for me just sitting on the grain.
 
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