Stainless mash screen stuck

[smittygouv30]

Hello all,

I did this DIY project several months ago and have finally had enough. Obviously my thought was to use the SS braid as a screen to keep most of trub and break material out of the fermentor. Needles to say it has failed! It has gotten stuck my last 3 brew sessions (4 of 6 total). I have even tried to clear the trub away from the braid with a stir paddle and it still will not drain the boil kettle without getting stuck 30 seconds later.

What should I do? I'm tempted to just unscrew the whole copper and SS braid and just use the ball valve and coupler.

Thanks,
Corey

 

[Poobah58]

I had a similar setup. It sucks! A simple fix is to replace the braid with a screen. It's called a Bazooka screen.

 

[duboman]

I use a bazooka screen as well and to some degree there is still some clogging. There are two things you can do. The first is to consider whatever you are leaving behind as part of your kettle loss and recalculate your mash /sparge volumes to reflect this amount and add it to your required pre-boil volume. The other thing you can do, which is what I have started doing is to use hop bags for your additions during the boil. Since I have started doing this I have found that I am now draining almost the entire kettle without issue and the second is that my wort is going into the primary almost crystal clear. I am very pleased with how the last two batches have worked out. I purchased 1 gallon size paint strainer bags, add the hops and tie them off to the side of the kettle. When the boil is complete I cut the strings and lift out the bags. One bag for each addition.

 

[Silentnoiz]

Maybe try using a hop spider. I haven't done this yet, but it is on my list.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/all-stainless-steel-hop-spider-338982/

 

[smittygouv30]

Great ideas I have never seen that hop spider before. Any negatives to it? It looks like stirring would be a bit of a challenge?

I was thinking about soldering the copper into kind of a "U" shape to let the braid sit right against the kettle wall. I read this somewhere but cant seem to find it now. I could the. Whirlpool all the break material to the center. Anybody tried this?

 

[mredge73]

I rigged my braid to a side pickup tube.
After boil I use my paddle to whirlpool my wort so solids move to the center of the pot.
This keeps the braid from clogging up for me.