I have been trying to sparge with this Phil's sparge contraption that spins as the HL is passing through it. It works pretty well, and I have hit efficiencies in the low to mid 70's
Something that's bothered me though is that is squeaks for like an hour when I am sparging. I've tried cleaning it real well, and even attempted to put a little drop of olive oil on the "spindle" about which the horizontal sparge arm rotates. It never worked for more than a few minutes.
So this time I used some graphite and a little bit of silicone spray. Just like with the olive oil, it bagan squeaking again about 2-3 minutes into the sparge. Maybe it's just that I'm a real auditory person and little noises are my pet peeve, but that really angered me. I gave it a solid 5 second blast of WD-40, and it immedately went quiet. However, not 5 minutes later, it started AGAIN...
Anyway, I've given up on the dang sparge arm, but now my wort smells kind of funny, and doesn't seem to want to ferment properly.
Any thoughts?
Something that's bothered me though is that is squeaks for like an hour when I am sparging. I've tried cleaning it real well, and even attempted to put a little drop of olive oil on the "spindle" about which the horizontal sparge arm rotates. It never worked for more than a few minutes.
So this time I used some graphite and a little bit of silicone spray. Just like with the olive oil, it bagan squeaking again about 2-3 minutes into the sparge. Maybe it's just that I'm a real auditory person and little noises are my pet peeve, but that really angered me. I gave it a solid 5 second blast of WD-40, and it immedately went quiet. However, not 5 minutes later, it started AGAIN...
Anyway, I've given up on the dang sparge arm, but now my wort smells kind of funny, and doesn't seem to want to ferment properly.
Any thoughts?