Cooler mash tun false bottom

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voodoochild7

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I just stated assembling my all grain stuff got 2 5 gal coolers and I built a cpvc manifold out of 3/3 piping it seems a bit small and I'm a bit suspicious as to its efficiency. It is square with another "leg" bisecting it leading to the outlet. Doesn't seem like enought tubing to me about 17 inches of tube with slits. As it didn't cost me much scrapping it is not a big deal. So now I got another idea to build a false bottom out of a stainless steel pie plate like one I saw built out of a pizza plate here's my rendering of it let me know what you think.

as you can see the pvc that connects it to the spigot will go in the the side of the plate what do you guys think of the design will it work?
mastun.gif
 
I looks good. It reminds me of the phils false bottom that i have. The only concern is the pie tin caving in from the weight. Also, do you have enough holes drilled to let the wort flow?
 
It's a thick stainless steel job so I don't think caving in will be an issue but now that you mention it maybe I'l add a bolt for support there will be lots o' holes in there.
 
I made my false bottom out of perforated stainless. My bottling bucket has a drain fitting in the side down low, like Voodoo's pic. But I cut my false bottom into an oval shape, so it fits diagonally from above the drain to the opposite bottom corner. But I use a grain bag too. Never had any grians in my wort, nor any plugged sparges. Make a loop of wire through the high side for removal, or it may become a permanent installation in the bottling bucket.
 
One thing that I noticed is diffeent from Phil's and others... why is it that the output hole is in the center and comes up and to the side... instead of doing what you are doing and having the output on the bottom?
 
Michael_Schaap said:
One thing that I noticed is diffeent from Phil's and others... why is it that the output hole is in the center and comes up and to the side... instead of doing what you are doing and having the output on the bottom?
Click to expand...
Will this have a negative effect? Help I want to do a batch this weekend?
 
The reason for the Phil's design having the outlet in the center of the dome is to reduce the amount of foundation water required. With that design, very little foundation water is required as the input to the outlet is very close to the real bottom. With a flat false bottom taking the outlet from underneath, the false bottom would have to be positioned above the outlet from the cooler (about 1 1/2 inches above the real bottom). This would require considerably more foundation water, and reduce the efficiency.

-a.
 
voodoochild7 said:
What if I just said screw the false bottom. and put a grain on the bottom and just opened up the tap.
Click to expand...
Not following the last sentence, but if you don't have a false bottom or some sort of filtering mechanism (ss braid, slotted manifold, etc) then the grain will just run out your drain and you won't actually separate the wort from the grain. That is until it plugs the drain.
 
My bad what I meant to say is what if I just say screw the false bottom and put a grain bag in there and let it sit against the outlet.
 
Its funny how things go full circle, this was the first widely available all grain brewing aid in the UK.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jim.dunleavy/sparging.htmGrain bag used for sparging

http://www.forumforfree.com/forums/index.php?mforum=jimsbrewingforu&showtopic=435Grain bag used for mashing and sparging
Although its not the most efficient method it is still widely used and produces great beers.

btw is this smiley really necessary....it looks like its fingers have been nailed to the wall and is having somesort of fit:rockin:
 
voodoochild7 said:
My bad what I meant to say is what if I just say screw the false bottom and put a grain bag in there and let it sit against the outlet.
Click to expand...

In spite of DAAB's post, I really don't think that this would work at all well.
To sparge effectively, you need the sparge water to filter evenly through the grain bed. Having a grain bag lying on the bottom of the tun in contact with the outlet would channel the sparge water to the outlet, leaving a large amount of grain unwashed. The channeling would also prevent the grain bed acting as an effective filter.

Supporting a grain bag above the level of the outlet would overcome both of these problems, and as very few solids will escape a grain bag, you could improve efficiency by tipping the tun in the direction of the spigot to recover the liquor below the bottom of the grain bag.

-a.
 
So what if I used the false bottom and put the grain bag on top of that? I'm gonna do this all grain thing you see and I don't care what you all say about it!!!
 
DAAB said:
btw is this smiley really necessary....it looks like its fingers have been nailed to the wall and is having somesort of fit:rockin:
Click to expand...
Careful there...powerful people are very fond of that smiley. ;)
 
I'm not following why a grainbag would induce channeling or how brewhouse eff. is affected by the false bottom design in this case. The grainbag should be big enough to fit the entire tun, kind of like a trashbag. The top would be open and sparge water applied as it usually is, agnostic if you will to the fact that there is a grainbag. Also, the grainbag should be uniform across the bottom. The only thing I can see affecting channeling is that all the water will try to rush for the drain, but that has to do with not having a proper manifold, not the grainbag itself.

As far as a small amount of water in the deadspace (I'm assuming it's a small amount from the picture) that shouldn't really affect the conversion efficiency. A little wort may be left in the tun unable to drain (most of us have some tun deadspace) which would mean you collect a little less wort, but the conversion % will be the same.

Unless I'm missing something which isn't uncommon.
 
Well I was talking about taking a grain bag like you steep grains tie off the top after you put in the grains, chuck it in the tun, then sparging over that
 
BeeGee said:
I'm not following why a grainbag would induce channeling or how brewhouse eff. is affected by the false bottom design in this case. The grainbag should be big enough to fit the entire tun, kind of like a trashbag. The top would be open and sparge water applied as it usually is, agnostic if you will to the fact that there is a grainbag. Also, the grainbag should be uniform across the bottom. The only thing I can see affecting channeling is that all the water will try to rush for the drain, but that has to do with not having a proper manifold, not the grainbag itself.

As far as a small amount of water in the deadspace (I'm assuming it's a small amount from the picture) that shouldn't really affect the conversion efficiency. A little wort may be left in the tun unable to drain (most of us have some tun deadspace) which would mean you collect a little less wort, but the conversion % will be the same.

Unless I'm missing something which isn't uncommon.
Click to expand...

As I see it, the purpose of sparging is to extract the sugars from the grain, and the more sugars you can extract, the higher your efficiency.

As you said, in the described scenario, the water would try to to rush for the drain which would leave a considerable amount of grain unrinsed and this will surely reduce efficiency. Additionally, as sugars are denser than water, the liquid that collects in the deadspace will contain large amounts of sugar.

Supporting the grain bag on a false bottom or using a manifold would allow better rinsing of the grain, and if a false bottom is used, the cooler could be tipped at the end of the sparge to extract much of the sweet wort from the dead space.

I should have mentioned that I fly sparge (and was thinking of fly sparging), and having 1/2g of the densest wort at the bottom of the tun after sparging would reduce my efficiency considerably. I would guess by about 10 - 15%.

-a.
 

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