MLT CPVC manifold with Bargain Fittings bulkhead???

I purchased the Bargain Fittings regular cooler conversion for my new 10 gallon GOTT cooler (my old 5 gallon was just too small). I can't for the life of me figure out the right combination of fittings/connections to create and attach a CPVC manifold to the coupler.

Anyone have any pictures or ideas?

Well, I had kind of an Ah-ha moment right after I posted. I was trying to attach it from the front cross peice. By moving it to the middle, I have more room to work with. Anyone see why this wouldn't work? After I take the stickers off of course! I'll probably extend the front out a bit too.




The angle isnt perfect going from the threaded attachment I have that threads into the coupler in the kit. If I jam it in, everything seems snug enough.

One more question. I glued my last manifold together, but regretted it since it was a little hard to clean. Do you think the manifold will hold together just with friction? I don't want to have to dump out my mash because it fell apart, but I do like the idea of being able to dissemble it.

For your angle issue to the bulkhead, you could use a torch to put a slight bend in the pipe. I did that with mine and it fits perfectly straight. Just hold it like 15 inches or so from the flame like toasting a
marshmallow.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll keep it as is right now. Just did a water test run. With no hose to create a siphon, I had 8 cups of dead space. With a hose attached draining into a pot below, i had less than 2 cups dead space. Thats a lot better than my last one!

My efficiency went from 60% to 75% with this setup. Although I'm comparing batch sparging to fly sparging respectively. That manifold is the best change in my process since going all grain.

I still plan to batch sparge for now. It works for me, and I'm not set up to fly sparge. I agree about the manifold though. I tried the braid in my last mash tun. After 2 stuck sparges, I made a manifold, albiet not as good as this one.

If the pipe is pretty tight, you will be creating suction from the bottom, so they angle won't be an issue, and with grains in there it will be even less than 2 cups of loss. Looks good to me.

I'm buidling the same set-up right now, more or less. Any input on which works better - slits or drilled holes? How many is enough/not enough?

Also, to try to eliminate the issue of attaching to the valve on the cooler, Im doing something like this:

so that I have some flexible hose attaching it rather than the rigid cpvc. If it works well, Ill put up pics to show what I did

I did the same design on my first manifold. The problem I had with flexible hose is that it gets really soft at 150 plus degrees and rhe weight of the grain collapses it causing a stuck sparge.

Did you find any way to fix this, or would I need to just move to a different design altogether? Ive seen some hose that looked a little thicker/had some reinforcement to it that looked like it might hold up better

The only fix I found was taking a larger thicker piece of flexible tubing, cutting a slit in it and pretty much wrapping the smaller tube with it.

I used a torch to bend it. I posted that earlier, but I didn't have a photo then.

how did you use a torch to bend it.. i tried it on a scrap piece and it got toasted.. how far away do you have to hold it?

This is a really old thread but I can tell you that you need to keep it several inches away from the visible flame. You want to gradually heat it up to softening point, not toast the surface. Keep spinning the tubing to heat evenly all around the tube.