Stuck Sparge: finally figured it out..

[thorHB]

I finally figured out what was causing stuck sparges almost every brew. I use a home depot 10 gal circular water cooler with a dome shaped false bottom. What was happening was when I added my strike water, the bottom of the cooler would swell and push up against the dip tube opening. I ground down the threaded half inch pipe almost to the nut securing it to the FB in order to get the opening as far away from the mash bottom as possible. Still no luck. I decided to punt and switch to a bazooka screen and have not had an issue since.

Here's the catch. Since switching over to a bazooka, my efficiency has gone down drastically. With the FB I was getting inefficiencies well over 75%. I have brewed three batches with the bazooka and each have had efficiencies around 65-68% and my OG's have been as much as 1.010 off.

Has anyone experiences such dropoffs in efficiency with bazooka screens? I love not having to worry about stuck sparge anymore however I am having a hard time accepting such low efficiency. I would appreciate any advice.

 

[passedpawn]

I finally figured out what was causing stuck sparges almost every brew. I use a home depot 10 gal circular water cooler with a dome shaped false bottom. What was happening was when I added my strike water, the bottom of the cooler would swell and push up against the dip tube opening. I ground down the threaded half inch pipe almost to the nut securing it to the FB in order to get the opening as far away from the mash bottom as possible. Still no luck. I decided to punt and switch to a bazooka screen and have not had an issue since.

Here's the catch. Since switching over to a bazooka, my efficiency has gone down drastically. With the FB I was getting inefficiencies well over 75%. I have brewed three batches with the bazooka and each have had efficiencies around 65-68% and my OG's have been as much as 1.010 off.

Has anyone experiences such dropoffs in efficiency with bazooka screens? I love not having to worry about stuck sparge anymore however I am having a hard time accepting such low efficiency. I would appreciate any advice.

Just cut the dip tube end at a slant - that's what I did. That way, if it contacts the bottom, it's still not occluded.

 

[thorHB]

Just cut the dip tube end at a slant - that's what I did. That way, if it contacts the bottom, it's still not occluded.

That's a brilliant idea. I will do that this afternoon. Were you having the same issue? Thanks!

 

[rekoob]

I cut slots in mine when I was using that type of setup. I didn't have the issue but was still thinking about some grain getting under the FB and plugging it up.

 

[passedpawn]

That's a brilliant idea. I will do that this afternoon. Were you having the same issue? Thanks!

Yep, it was quite a while ago. I figured it out right away and cut the end at a 45° slant. Problem fixed. I used an angle grinder.

Before I had my false bottom, I used a bazooka screen. Worked fine, but I damaged it while stirring the mash with my mash paddle. I like the false bottom a lot better.

 

[doug293cz]

Has anyone experiences such dropoffs in efficiency with bazooka screens? I love not having to worry about stuck sparge anymore however I am having a hard time accepting such low efficiency. I would appreciate any advice.

When fly sparging you may see a drop off in efficiency with a bazooka screen vs. a false bottom due to channeling or other flow effects. There shouldn't be any difference if batch sparging.

Brew on

 

[thorHB]

Good to know, Doug. Thanks. I have been fly sparging with the screen. Figured I'd get some channeling but didn't think it would cause such a reduction in efficiency. I'm going to try to either put slits in the dip tube or cut it at an angle as suggested above. If that doesn't work I'll just batch sparge with the bazooka.

 

[passedpawn]

That's a brilliant idea. I will do that this afternoon. Were you having the same issue? Thanks!

Here's mine. Afterwards, I realized a 45 would have been easier. Not hard either way though.

 

[thorHB]

Awesome. Thanks for the pic. My dip tube is a 90 elbow with one end threaded that penetrates the FB and then gets screwed on tight with a nut. I ground down the remaining threaded portion beyond the nut pretty far. hopefully there is enough left to put an angle on in. I'm thinking slots, as rekoob mentioned above, might be a good option.

Side note: Just realized you are my neighbor across the bay. Cheers!

 

[Dayglow]

I used to have the same problem. Even after getting the false bottom drain as high off the bottom as possible it still ran at a trickle. Finally got some 1/4" food grade sheet gasket material and made a "platform" ring to elevate the false bottom a bit. Worked like a charm. You could wrap some heavy duty, boil safe tubing around the rim of the false bottom and achieve much the same.

 

[thorHB]

I used to have the same problem. Even after getting the false bottom drain as high off the bottom as possible it still ran at a trickle. Finally got some 1/4" food grade sheet gasket material and made a "platform" ring to elevate the false bottom a bit. Worked like a charm. You could wrap some heavy duty, boil safe tubing around the rim of the false bottom and achieve much the same.

Thanks for the advice. When I finally figured out that it was the MLT and not the false bottom that was causing the issue, the only thing I could think to use on the fly was a rolled towel wrapped around bottom of the cooler to elevate the false bottom. similar to what you describe. It worked but obviously not a permanent solution. It was a little tough to get the elevated false bottom under the bulkhead. One of these afternoons I'm going to find some time to grind some slits into the dip tube and see how that works.

 

[thorHB]

I ended up grinding 4 grooves into the bottom of the dip tube. Brewed a 10 gallon APA batch this weekend and it worked like a champ. Efficiency back up close to 80%. Thanks for all the input.

 

[passedpawn]

I ended up grinding 4 grooves into the bottom of the dip tube. Brewed a 10 gallon APA batch this weekend and it worked like a champ. Efficiency back up close to 80%. Thanks for all the input.

Great! Maybe I'll bump into you around town.