Anyone tried the Blichmann false bottom?

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stoutaholic

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Does anyone use the Blichmann Boilermaker false bottom? It is described as "hybrid of a perforated false bottom (high efficiency) and a slotted manifold (plug resistance) to give you the best of BOTH designs."

I am wondering how well it works. It is not any more expensive than other false bottoms by, say, Polarware. As you can see from the picture, it does not use the standard perforated 3/32 design.

Has anyone used this with a recirculating system?

FBcutaway.jpg


The only problem I see with using this is that I would have to weld on some legs, as it is designed to sit on the ledge of a Blichmann kettle's bottom.
 
From what I have heard they are great except you can not use it in a boil kettle. If you like a false bottom in the BK for using whole hops without strainer bags you can not use this. The bottom will want to come up from the boiling.
 
I have one. It works pretty well. I do not continuously recirc but I do vorlauf about the last 20 minutes. With a grist bill of 20% polenta corn I did not have any sticking issues although it did draw a substantial vacuum. It was a very small grain bill in a 30G Boilermaker. The problem I had was the pump drawing a vacuum on the grain bed and sucking air through the grain bed via the sight glass! I couldn't find a small plug, so I had to stand there with my finger on the top end of the sight glass the whole time.

It is sturdy enough, but I think you might have trouble with it if you are not supporting the entire rim like the Boilermaker does. You may need quite a few feet spaced around the circumference
 
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