False Bottom & Kettle Spigot Filtration

I have the Weldless FalseBottom Setup from MoreBeer.com
( http://morebeer.com/view_product/19807/102318 ) and it's been letting a ton of grain particles through my spigot when batch sparging. I usually vorlauf a TON (at least a gallon)-- which helps, but not a lot. As of now, I'm having to pour my sweet liquor through a filter on it's way to my brew kettle.


Also, at the end of the boil, I end up getting a ton of leaves stuck in my spigot when getting to the last gallon or so of my brew pot. Yesterday I ended up just calling it quits w/ still a gallon and a half of beauty in the keggle cause I couldn't get it out in a sanitary way.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

are you crushing the grain yourself? mabey to fine... try adding rice hulls

You could make one of those hop bags like this>>
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Hop_Bag

It should help with the hop problem. I use a paint bag in a plastic pale and pour the last remnants of goodness into that and filter out the trub and hops bits.

hammer one said:

are you crushing the grain yourself? mabey to fine... try adding rice hulls

Click to expand...

Grain is being crushed at the LHBS

I use a false bottom in my kettle (Polarware 10g), and don't have any problems except for those times I forgot to put the false bottom in the kettle before adding the hops.

-a.

Did you vorlauf enough? Sometimes it takes a while to get the filter action of the hulls but if they are too small then they keep going through the holes instead of piling up around the holes. You need to go for less crush in order to have bigger pieces of hull.

If you go too far the other way, longer mash times will get you more sugars if the grains are not crushed enough.

WBC said:

Did you vorlauf enough? Sometimes it takes a while to get the filter action of the hulls but if they are too small then they keep going through the holes instead of piling up around the holes. You need to go for less crush in order to have bigger pieces of hull.

If you go too far the other way, longer mash times will get you more sugars if the grains are not crushed enough.

Click to expand...

I'd hope I vorlaufed enough-- I would typically do around a gallon of vorlaufing before starting. I'd still get a few grains and would just pass it through a filter enroute to my brew kettle.

I have a question regarding that hop bag...if you are doing a 5 gallon batch, is the 5 gallon paint strainer bag big enough still?