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I am all for pushing back against the $80 false bottom thing, eventually it's just brewing bling. But when you are already going to spend $10-15 on a specialized bag, $20 on a pulley so you don't hurt yourself, and it all gets bigger and bigger... I mean that $7 SS mesh solution is pretty appealing, since it fits on any kettle tun or cooler tun you want it to. If you batch sparge with this and have your sparge water ready on time, there's no reason lautering can't be done in 20-30 minutes. And you don't have to hoist, squeeze, or otherwise fiddle with your grains.
My used kettle already had a little nub inside, so I just clamped my mesh onto it and called it a day. (Pic below not mine, courtesy google images)
I don't have a valve on my pot. It's 10gal and I bought it on Amazon for $40. my bag didn't cost $10-15... more like $7-8. And my hoists were free too... I was born with them... they're called arms
To elaborate a bit.... I pull the grain sack from the main mash and let it drain for maybe 10-20 seconds then dunk it in my sparge pot. Put the mash pot back no the burner and get the heat going. Place a colander over the mash pot (now brew kettle) pull the grain sack from my sparge pot, and place it in the colander to drain. After a few minutes, I combine the sparge runnings with the mash runnings which is now coming to a boil. It's really a pretty easy, quick process. Takes maybe 2-3 minutes tops.
I can understand people not wanting to lift heavy sacks of wet grain. I'm 34, so it's not a big issue for me. And I'm really only lifting it for no more than 10-20 seconds. It just bugs me when people act like it's this big sloppy mess of sticky wort getting all over. That really isn't the case... at least with my setup.
