Bazooka Filter and Brew in a Bag

[CanaHomebrew]

I use a 10 gallon kettle for brew in a bag with a bazooka filter attached to the ball valve inside the kettle. This does a great job of keeping trub out of my fermenter, but recently it has been clogging when my wort gets down to about 2 gallons left. I usually have to brush of the trub that sticks to it with my spatula, and then lift the kettle a little higher to get it flowing again, which really just leads to a workout I didn't sign up for. I usually mill my grain twice because it seems to increase efficiency in BIAB.

Are there any alternatives to the bazooka filter that I can explore? Or should I just stop double milling?

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Did the slowdown coincide with your double-milling, or have you always double-milled?

 

[CanaHomebrew]

I've always double milled on this system. I recently bought a false bottom and used it on my most recent brew, a witbier with over 60% flaked wheat, and it didn't clog as much, but I still had to lift the kettle pretty high when I got down to the last 2 gal or so

 

[3 Dawg Night]

I've always double milled on this system. I recently bought a false bottom and used it on my most recent brew, a witbier with over 60% flaked wheat, and it didn't clog as much, but I still had to lift the kettle pretty high when I got down to the last 2 gal or so

Can you explain what you mean by lifting the kettle? I can't quite picture what's going on. Is that a BIAB thing?

 

[CanaHomebrew]

Not a BIAB thing. Basically, as I drain wort into the fermenter using my ball valve and tubing, when the kettle gets down to about 2 gallons left, wort stops flowing out of the valve until I use my spatula to scrape trub off the bazooka filter. After I clear it, it will run a little, then stop again until I actually lift the pot above my head to get it flowing out of the ball valve again. It's almost like my kettle needs to be higher above my fermenter, but I haven't had that problem until recently with the bazooka filter getting clogged

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Well, as your kettle wort level decreases and your fermenter wort level increases, you'll have less and less siphoning "force" pulling the wort/trub through the bazooka screen. I'm not sure how to fix that other than lifting the kettle (or lowering the fermenter).