Speed of mash tun drain with fancy manifold vs SS braid

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Can someone here tell me how long it takes them to drain a full 70Qt mash tun with a fancy manifold such as those shown here? I have a 50Qt mash tun with a stainless braid right now, and since I upgraded to 12 gallon batches it takes me well over an hour to drain the tun after the mash.

My grain is milled to .032" with a monster mill, and I usually have 22-25 pounds of grain in the cooler.

I do batch sparging and the mash/sparge draining is the longest part of the brew-day, taking over an hour each time. I would like to cut this down if I can. If these manifolds work much faster I'll be making one when I upgrade to the 70qt cooler this weekend!

Thanks!

 

[billl]

Generally, the manifold isn't the weak link in the draining speed. It's the wort draining through the grain bed to the manifold/screen that can be slow. I'd recommend some rice hulls or conditioning the grain before milling.

 

[stevehaun]

Open up the gap on your monster mill - sounds like you have a stuck sparge.

 

[kh54s10]

I use a water heater braid. It is 3/4 inch diameter. I start off slowly then open wide. It takes maximum of 10 minutes to drain the mash, another 10 to drain the sparge. I often split the sparge in two to get and accurate preboil amount. Still it doesn't take that long. I also suspect that you are having, at least, partially stuck sparges.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Last night I determined a few things about my mashtun.

1. I haven't looked at it since I built it about 1.5 year ago, and I quickly realized it is the weak link in my brew day.

2. The SS braid was totally flat and collapsed, i'm not sure how any liquid would get through it.

3. I had serious flow limitation: I had a brass 3/8" to hose barb adapter the SS braid was connected to, and this was at best only a 1/4" opening at the end of the hose-barb!

My temporary solution:

I re-puffed up the SS braid and cut some slits in a length of 3/4" copper pipe, the SS braid will now live in this pipe and hopefully prevent it from collapsing again. I also bought a brass 3/8" FPT to 3/8" HB adapter for $4 off amazon, we'll see if it makes a difference for this weekends brew. Dont ask why it's 3/8" not 1/2", the answer is I didn't know what I was doing when I bought my SS ball valve way back then before batch 1!

My long-term solution:

I bought the 70qt extreme cooler online last night, and some supplies for a full 1/2" drain for the new cooler. I should also be able to use my current bazooka screen on this setup inside in the mash tun instead of the SS mesh thing. Again i'll likely do a bit of pipe around it to prevent it from collapsing.

thoughts?

 

[RichBenn]

I too had slow drain speeds when using too small a diameter SS mesh tube. Got a bigger one (bazooka tube) and then it was fast.

In terms of collapsing, many put a SS spring inside their tube. Probably a good plan, especially for heavy grain beds.

 

[horseinmay]

My long-term solution:

I bought the 70qt extreme cooler online last night, and some supplies for a full 1/2" drain for the new cooler. I should also be able to use my current bazooka screen on this setup inside in the mash tun instead of the SS mesh thing. Again i'll likely do a bit of pipe around it to prevent it from collapsing.

thoughts?

Keep in mind that surrounding the screen with a pipe will block the openings and obstruct your flow. You could either use the screen or a slotted pipe. To prevent collapse, go with the pipe instead.

Go Orediggers!

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Keep in mind that surrounding the screen with a pipe will block the openings and obstruct your flow. You could either use the screen or a slotted pipe. To prevent collapse, go with the pipe instead.

Go Orediggers!

I forgot to update this thread: I made my new 70Qt tun and used a 1/2" bazooka screen, I also put a 1.5" cpvc tube around the bazooka screen to prevent the grain pressure from smooshing it, and I drilled a ton of holes in the cpvc pipe.

I got drains in about 20 minutes on my brew day, so my old compressed SS mesh was to blame I believe.