I tried using a false bottom with my GF for the first time today and it was a rather big failure. I bought it from my local HBS and it was sold as the official Robobrew false bottom that should fit perfectly into the GF. When testing it dry I had to bend the ring in the middle but other than that it seemed to fit reasonably well. I had read about people having issues with the false bottom jumping around during the boil, so I tried checking for that with a steel paddle but it seemed like it stayed in place. I added 50g of hops in total straight into the boil. At the end of the boil when I was going to recirculate boiling wort though the chiller for a few minutes it clogged immediately. I tried blowing air backwards through the chiller a few times but it just got stuck again when enabling the pump. I ended up chilling with an immersion chiller and transferring with a siphon.
I realized when cleaning that the clog probably was in the ball and spring valve where you connect the chiller, if I had realized it during the boil I might have been able to fix it. However, it was evident that most of the hops I added to the boil had somehow gone though the false bottom, so it was pretty much useless. For now I'm going back to just using the standard filter and a hop bag for the hop additions, but I'm curious how people use the false bottom successfully? Are you throwing the hops straight into the kettle and have them stay on the false bottom during transfer? In that case I guess I either have an incompatible false bottom or it has jumped around during the boil without me noticing.
As a bonus a picture of the GF being used as a glorified boil kettle, and a judging dog.
I realized when cleaning that the clog probably was in the ball and spring valve where you connect the chiller, if I had realized it during the boil I might have been able to fix it. However, it was evident that most of the hops I added to the boil had somehow gone though the false bottom, so it was pretty much useless. For now I'm going back to just using the standard filter and a hop bag for the hop additions, but I'm curious how people use the false bottom successfully? Are you throwing the hops straight into the kettle and have them stay on the false bottom during transfer? In that case I guess I either have an incompatible false bottom or it has jumped around during the boil without me noticing.
As a bonus a picture of the GF being used as a glorified boil kettle, and a judging dog.