I did my first brew day on my new system yesterday. It's a 10 gallon 3 kettle flat system from Morebeer. Looks a lot like the Brutus 10. Aside from a couple of minor hiccups resulting from kinks that still need to be worked out in my process, the day went very well.
I did have one item that concerned me a bit. I have been a batch sparger for years. I had been using a cooler with a bazooka screen. I also wrapped a mesh bag around the screen and after a quart or 2 of circulation, never got grain into my kettle.
Yesterday was my first fly sparge in a long time. It went very well by the numbers. Pumped a little over 11 gallons into the kettle in about 75 min. My efficiency was even a couple of points higher than I expected.
But right at the en of the sparge, my pump seemed to stick a bit. I had an air bubble and things weren't moving. I increased the flow rate on the pump and squished the hose a bit, which got things moving.
However, when the air bubble rose to the top of the BK, it brought with it quite a few grain chunks. I am hoping I caught most of them at knockout. I used a false bottom in the BK and this batch was 100% leaf hops. It formed a pretty solid filter bed.
When I broke down the MLT to clean, I noticed a significant amount of grain had made it below the false bottom. I plan on rigging some sort of screen/filter for the pick up tube before I brew again. But has anyone else had a similar problem with a kettle MLT and a metal insert false bottom like this?
I did have one item that concerned me a bit. I have been a batch sparger for years. I had been using a cooler with a bazooka screen. I also wrapped a mesh bag around the screen and after a quart or 2 of circulation, never got grain into my kettle.
Yesterday was my first fly sparge in a long time. It went very well by the numbers. Pumped a little over 11 gallons into the kettle in about 75 min. My efficiency was even a couple of points higher than I expected.
But right at the en of the sparge, my pump seemed to stick a bit. I had an air bubble and things weren't moving. I increased the flow rate on the pump and squished the hose a bit, which got things moving.
However, when the air bubble rose to the top of the BK, it brought with it quite a few grain chunks. I am hoping I caught most of them at knockout. I used a false bottom in the BK and this batch was 100% leaf hops. It formed a pretty solid filter bed.
When I broke down the MLT to clean, I noticed a significant amount of grain had made it below the false bottom. I plan on rigging some sort of screen/filter for the pick up tube before I brew again. But has anyone else had a similar problem with a kettle MLT and a metal insert false bottom like this?
