Equipment test results

What does everyone think of the results of my liquid retention test on my new AG equipment. I am making the AG jump after a couple successful PM and extract brews.
My brew pot is a turkey fryer, 8.75 gal, with a spigot at the bottom. With just using the spigot to drain the pot it holds .75 gallons or liquid.
I have a cooler converted for my MLT, i plan to batch sparge. the cooler holds .5 gallons of liquid when drained on a flat surface.
Lastly my MLT lost 14 degrees over an hour. the only thing in the MLT was the water, and the cooler was cold to the touch when i poured the water in. So what does everyone think. Will my equipment hold to much my precious beer? is my MLT letting to much heat out? Thanks Pat

That 14 degree drop would be detrimental to the beer, but if it was a cold cooler and just water, then that test is meaningless. A preheated cooler would have been better, or waiting until the cooler heated up then measuring the temp and waiting an hour, and grain will retain a lot of heat. What kind of cooler is it? You will probably want to fill the lid with Great Stuff, just drill a couple small holes and squirt it in.

The .5gal in the MLT will mean you are getting less effeciency, but probably not by much, especially if you batch sparge, and the .75 in the kettle in only .25 more than me. Your losses aren't that bad, and if everyone measured their losses, I bet most would be along the lines of where you are.

As far as your cooler MLT goes, don't rely on your tests with water only. Mine loses several degrees with just water, but will keep losses to 1°F to 2°F per hour with proper grist/water ratio.
Also, what type of manifold do you have in your MLT?

Pre heat your MLT, drain and then add the water when you do the actual brew. Loss will be less with pre heated MLT and the mash holds heat better than water alone. Also, look into covering your MLT with a blanket or comforter.

+1 on manifold question.

How are you collecting, holding wort until your finished with sparge water in turkey fryer?

Good idea to do a complete run through of all steps without actually using grain and that will help ID any flaws ahead of time.

My manifold is a brass ball valve outside connected with a brass tube to a s/s braid inside.
I have several smaller pots around 3 or so gallons i plan to use to heat my sparge water. I will collect into my brew pot.

Mo... I've only done one AG so far, but I was worried about my braid moving all around or "crushing" (many people don't worry about this and are just fine). To eliminate the problem, I took a little piece of 3/8" copper (about 8 inches... same length as the braid) Drilled a bunch of big holes in it... and I inserted it into the braid.
I hope that made sense! It just gave me a little piece of mind
Disclaimer: The braid approach, or any variations thereof, are not ideal for fly sparging. I plan on doing a cpvc manifold if I want to move to fly sparging.

My kettle has about 3 qts dead space below the spigot. I use a false bottom if using whole hops, and a paint filter if using pellets. With either of these, I can tip the kettle, and reduce the dead space to about 1 cup.

-a.