Double Braided Mash Tun?

Alright, before I begin take it easy on me it's been a rough year and I will be brewing a double on sunday after being out of it for a little over a year!!

My old mash tun was a pain and leaked so I decided to get a better build together. I'm guessing the second ss braid was a waste of money but I figured what the hell I'll give it a try. I'll either do a manifold or go back to the single down the middle if the efficiency blows on this one.

Let me know your thoughts and Happy Brewing!!

That should work REAL well!!! Good idea.

Maybe narrow the center one and pull the outside one in an inch from the edge, to cover the grain bed more evenly. A stiff wire brace or two between them could help hold the shape. Just form a loop around them with a wire. Easy to do and might help a lot.

The gap between each braid line should be twice the gap between the braid and the edge.

Looks good! Two braids is probably overkill as you said, but it cetainly won't hurt anything. Just a word of warning, I've found most hose clamps to be made from a pretty low grade of SS, and most will start to corrode after a few uses. I ended up using some plastic zip ties instead, and they've worked great. Are you batch sparging or fly sparging?

yeah it wont get anymore liquid but i guess in case one gets stuck, you still have the other...

Batch sparging. I thought of the zip ties as well as the spacing but I didn't want to put too much effort into it until I tested it out. I think I am going to solder everything except for the connection to the valve to increase the flow and hopefully minimize dead space. I'm going to test dead space here in a few minutes. Thanks for the input!!

So I tested my dead space and without soldering any of the connections I am at 1 qt exactly. Since I am using beersmith and entering this number with my equipment profile do I need to worry about squeezing any more out of it?

I will probably solder the connections just so the thing stays together and I can get it in exactly the same place every time.

Since you're batch sparging, the manifold design has virtually no effect on efficiency, so I'm sure it will work great for you. With all that braid in there I'm sure you'll be able to drain it as fast as you want.

Beautiful job! However, one should realize that most, or almost all of the runoff occurs in the first several inches of braid. An 8", 24" or even a 36" braid sparges about the same IME.

wilserbrewer said:

Beautiful job! However, one should realize that most, or almost all of the runoff occurs in the first several inches of braid. An 8", 24" or even a 36" braid sparges about the same IME.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I figured that was the case but I had a hard time deciding between the manifold and the braid so a hybrid was created. I'll see how this works. The ultimate goal is a keggle mash tun, have the keg ready to weld but no welder at the moment.