10 Gallon Cooler Braid Loss

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harley03

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Well guys I need some advice!

I have been using a 48qt rectangular cooler with a copper manifold design when mashing and seem to have good success with that but recently I acquired a 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler in which I want to try and use. I typically do 5 gallon batches with grain weight ranging from 9 to 13 pounds.

I have taken the 10 gallon cooler installed a ball valve and a stainless steel braid (water line) like allot of other people have done. The question I have is, I have performed a dry run with just water to see how empty I could get the MLT and to my surprise it left about 9 cups.

Now to me this seems like a waste of allot of good sweet wort. My other cooler I only leave about 1 cup.

Therefore what should I do? or what can be done with the braid in order to collect more of the wort? I would like to try and use this setup for my next batch since fellow homebrewers seem to have great success with this design but it sure seems like it is wasting allot.
 
did you tilt the cooler? i got about the same in my 48qt and braid. but when u tilt u should get almost all of it.
 
did you tilt the cooler? i got about the same in my 48qt and braid. but when u tilt u should get almost all of it.

No I did not try and tilt the cooler. I will try that next time to see if I can get any more wort out.

944PLAY:
I will review that link in your post. Additionally I was worried that there would be some desirable wort left in the bottom of the cooler. Hate to let it go to waist or take a hit on efficiency!

I just felt it should not be necessary to tilt the cooler if designed correctly. I have also heard of people adding some sort of dip tube inside the braid in order to remove most of the wort.
 
I use a false bottom in mine, it doesn't leave much behind. I think it's because there is an elbow in the false bottom, maybe you could use a bent piece of pipe to get the braid against the bottom of the cooler?
 
I have a 54 quart Igloo cooler, which is 13.5 gallons. I have about one gallon of dead space in the bottom. I enter this into Beer Smith so it can calculate the mash water volume. However it seems the second running's are too clear and watery with a real low gravity. I'm getting some off flavors and I think the watery low gravity wort is to blame.

Next time I brew I'm going to tilt the cooler to get as much wort out as physically possible on a dry run. Then ill mash and sparge with the tilted cooler. Ill enter the dead space into Beer Smith and hopefully get some better tasting beer.
 
My braid is in a circle and the way I have it mounted at least half of it touches the bottom of the cooler lightly. I only get about 2 cups deadspace in mine. But that's one of the things you factor into your software (I use beersmith) and there's a place to add that, and it factors the amount of water you need to add to compensate for it.
 
I have a similar 10 gal Rubbermaid MLT, but I use a copper manifold instead of a braid. My "deadspace" is also about 8 cups. This makes since since the level of the spigot is some distance above the bottom of the cooler and water (or anything else, for that matter) doesn't flow upwards without help. However, I think worrying about deadspace is not the the way to go (RDWHAHB). When you actually have grains in the MLT, they will occupy some of the space taken up by that 8 cups of deadspace and you will actually be leaving less good wort behind in the MLT. Also, if you double-batch sparge and use enough water so that your last runnings are at around or less than 1.010, you won't take a hit in efficiency.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, IMHO, it's not how much liquid you leave behind in the MLT, it's how much extract. So if the gravity of the last runnings are low enough, who cares how much wort is actually left behind in the MLT.

Happy sparging!
 
Well guys I need some advice!

I have been using a 48qt rectangular cooler with a copper manifold design when mashing and seem to have good success with that but recently I acquired a 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler in which I want to try and use. I typically do 5 gallon batches with grain weight ranging from 9 to 13 pounds.

Why the switch from 12 gallons to 10? Just because you have it?
 
Well guys I finally finished the braid and have used it for two batches now and seems to be working fine. I left about 6 cups in the bottom of the mash tun when using just water as a test.
After I mashed my last batch I tried to get all the liquid out I could to perform a measurement and it left about 2 cups which the grain bed has soaked up most of it. After sparging it looks like most of the sweet wort is already been pushed through.
What I need to do now is see what my efficiency is. I have beersmith so it is just a matter of using the software to do that for me.
Anyway below is a pic of the final braid. I was nervous because I have never used a braid before but so many people use that design I just had to try it.

Thanks Again,

IMG_4076.jpg
 
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