I did a brew last night. I took a few pictures to show the details of the grain basket while I was cleaning up.
This is Thing1's grain basket. It's made from a cheap 8 gallon boil kettle with a false bottom inserted in it.
The plug in the center plugs the fitting the stand pipe used to screw into. I don't use the stand pipe anymore, no need, even when brewing with flaked oats.
The hole in the top of the grain bucket is for the rod that is used as a handle to pass through so it can be lifted into the sparge position.
This grain basket will comfortably mash up to 15 pounds of grain. If I need more grains than that, I will do a reiterative mash.
This is the underside of the grain basket. There is a single 1/2"ish hole drilled in it so that the mash liquid can drain out into the boil kettle while mashing and also while sparging. I should probably drill a second hole to allow faster draining, but it works OK as it is.
The grain basket is positioned so the drain hole is opposite of the pump outlet on the boil kettle. This means that the all the mash liquid has to cross the entire width of the bottom of the boil kettle, meaning there are no areas of unmoving mash liquid. This helps prevent localized hot spots and scorching.
The grain basket has 4 SS bolts around the periphery. They are used to hold the grain basket up when sparging.
The boil kettle has 4 pieces of rod around the outside to serve as a surface for the 4 periphery bolts above to sit on when the grain bucket is in the sparge position. These were silver soldered on.
All in ones typically use a clip or a wire rod gizmo that has to be put in place as the grain basket is lifted up. Not so on Thing1. These rod pieces stay in place and require no fiddling when lifting the grain basket.
To put the grain basked into the sparge position, one needs only lift the grain basket up and turn it 45 degees so that the bolts like up with the rods.
The grain basket is very easy to lift because it is at the right height, the handle allows a good arm position and good control of rotating the basket.
The grain basket sits on these 3 1.5" x 1.5" aluminum spacers. I fish them out of the boil kettle at the beginning of the boil with my brewing spoon. It is pretty easy once you've done it a couple times.
The grain basket could have been hung on some bolts like the ones used to hold it in the sparge position. I did this as a quick way to test things and liked it so much I kept them.