Mash Tun Build - Do I need a Steel Braid or is a grain bag enough?

[Beer-Baron]

Hi there

I'm putting together my first mash tun according to these plans.

http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/mashtun.htm

Basically I have a tube jammed through the draining hole and a valve on the end. What I'm wondering is if the Steel Braid is important, or do you think that if I just lined the cooler with a giant grain bag that would filter out the grains and allow enough flow.

Input please?

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

I think you will want either a braid, a manifold, or a false bottom.

Wrasslin' with that bag will get real old, real fast. Plus, making a braid is SIMPLE.

 

[Beer-Baron]

Really? How do you mean? What wrestling would I need to ? How is the big grain bag any different then a steel braid? Do u mean it would cause problems with sparging?

 

[jgln]

I don't think you will get as much out of the grain with the bag. I tried putting all my hops into a bag once and it became a dense lump and relaesed much less into the beer than past times adding right in the wort. Just my opinion though.

I of course am just using the hops as an example, I know you are talking about mashing.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Really? How do you mean? What wrestling would I need to ? How is the big grain bag any different then a steel braid? Do u mean it would cause problems with sparging?

Did you mean putting all the grain in a bag, then sparging by "dipping" in the sparge water?

 

[Beer-Baron]

No. The bag I'm talking about is sold at Austin home brew. It's huge. It will line the whole cooler and then some. I was mostly wondering about flow. I don't believe I will have a problem with grains clumping. The bag is bigger then the cooler.

 

[BackAlleyBrewingCo]

Hi there

I'm putting together my first mash tun according to these plans.

http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/mashtun.htm

Basically I have a tube jammed through the draining hole and a valve on the end. What I'm wondering is if the Steel Braid is important, or do you think that if I just lined the cooler with a giant grain bag that would filter out the grains and allow enough flow.

Input please?

I think you'll find that the end of your tube will clog up pretty quickly like that. To use a bag as your filter you'll need some sort of false bottom to give a large surface area for the wort to flow through. a simple baking cooling rack would probably work just fine in your case - just put your tube under the rack and the bag above it and it should leave enough room for the wort to drain out.

TD

 

[Beer-Baron]

Good idea. I'll look into it. Thanks