False Bottom Advice

[brewmadness]

My first mash tun I built I used a rectangular cooler with a braided line. Never had a problem draining or with stuck sparges. I'd just open the valve and go. Never got super clear runnings but not that big of an issue. I recently upgraded to a 10 gallon round cooler with a false bottom. I've only run one batch through this, but had issues right off the bat. After the mash, I cracked the valve to start a vorlauf.....nothing. barely a trickle. I stirred it up more and tried again. Nothing. I ended up dumping the whole mash into another cooler, cleaning everything out and dumping back into the round cooler. Got it draining that time, and then on the about half way through the batch sparge it stuck again. I was able to get it going again by stirring it up good and then vorlaufing again but man! So what I'm looking for is a little advice from other users of similar equipment to help minimize or eliminate stuck sparges. I am going to guess I will get some "drain very slow" responses? And of course there is always the "why don't you just biab" crowd. But I'm interested to hear methods from successful false bottom users.

 

[bad67z]

I have only used a false bottom, I have never had a stuck sparge? Even when I have used a high percentage of rice, flaked corn and rolled oatmeal. When brewing with "sticky" grains/adjuncts I use rice hulls to keep them off of the filtering surface. I add a pound or two depending on the size of the grain bill.