Using a braid and a false bottom

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olotti

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I have a 10gal round cooler with the spigot 2” above the bottom of the cooler. If I put a braid in will I be able to access that wort below the spigot manifold. I think it’ll help my efficiency being able to leave nothin behind. However I also get there’s nothing pulling that last little bit of wort through the spigot since it’s below the level of the spigot but with the braid in place as an extra filter I’m hoping if I tilt the mlt it’ll run clearer than if not there. Anyone use this method or is it just a waste having both a false bottom and braid.
 
Usually folks first connect a dip tube to the drain valve, then attach a braid/Bazooka to that. Given the right geometry it should cut dead-loss down to under a quart or so...

Cheers!

[edit] Missed the "false bottom and braid". Imo, one only needs a braid if they have a really badly performing false bottom. When I was using a 10 gallon round cooler as a mash tun I was able to find a way to seal the round domed FB to the cooler liner sidewalls preventing anything from getting around it, and literally never had any lautering problems using a solid dip tube ending about a 1/4" above the cooler floor...
 
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i'd say eye ball it....i use a bazooka tube off a straight tap....

in my case i do often get lazy during sparging and let the cooler drain dry a couple times though....so the dead space would probably is mostly water at that point anyway....

i do 10 gallon batches with ~20lb's grain, stop sparging when my 15 gallon kettle is about an inch from the top......and get 83% with a single step mash and 90% with a two step......being that most people shoot for 75%, i've never been worried about the dead space....and brewing stouts will help you figure out how much you're losing to deadspace...easy to tell with the color....
 
Usually folks first connect a dip tube to the drain valve, then attach a braid/Bazooka to that. Given the right geometry it should cut dead-loss down to under a quart or so...

Cheers!

[edit] Missed the "false bottom and braid". Imo, one only needs a braid if they have a really badly performing false bottom. When I was using a 10 gallon round cooler as a mash tun I was able to find a way to seal the round domed FB to the cooler liner sidewalls preventing anything from getting around it, and literally never had any lautering problems using a solid dip tube ending about a 1/4" above the cooler floor...

I did a hot water test after I Connected the spigot manifold to make sure there were no leaks and after it stopped draining I tilted the ton and there was 1/2 gal left over so not to much. I think the spigot might be a little lower than my previous cooler. Below is my outlet brass nipple so would I just find a copper or brass elbow that’ll slide over that as a make shift dip tube? Or maybe I could take that nipple off and buy a threaded elbow and connect that and that would be the dip tube.

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maybe you need a bigger boil pot....

and a question, are you batch sparging or fly spraging.....i think the rule with fly sparging is to sparge until you hit something like ~1.008 run-off...and just boil the hell out of it....
 
What size thread is that barbed fitting?
Most folks use a bent dip tube that threads into the drain valve using a male flare fitting...

Cheers!
 
maybe you need a bigger boil pot....

and a question, are you batch sparging or fly spraging.....i think the rule with fly sparging is to sparge until you hit something like ~1.008 run-off...and just boil the hell out of it....

I batch sparge
 
What size thread is that barbed fitting?
Most folks use a bent dip tube that threads into the drain valve using a male flare fitting...

Cheers!

shoot I don’t remember. It’s pieced together from the design in palmers how to brew book.
 
One of these screwed into the drain valve and then a dip tube is inserted into that open end?
 

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Or could I screw this into the drain valve?
 

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I batch sparge


i'd do a three or four batch sparge in that case....and check the SG of each instance run-off.....or maybe something new, a half batch sparge....drain half the wort, then fill it up back to the top of the grain......maybe three times, pretty much what i do with my colander...


(you're making beer, i bet you don't whip out calculator to figure mols of sugar to, ethanol and co2 produced? or maybe you do, but only if you still bottle...:D)
 
i'd do a three or four batch sparge in that case....and check the SG of each instance run-off.....or maybe something new, a half batch sparge....drain half the wort, then fill it up back to the top of the grain......maybe three times, pretty much what i do with my colander...


(you're making beer, i bet you don't whip out calculator to figure mols of sugar to, ethanol and co2 produced? or maybe you do, but only if you still bottle...:D)

so instead of doing a 4gal single sparge split to 2 and 2.
 
so instead of doing a 4gal single sparge split to 2 and 2.


what size is this cooler? and yeah, it would kill the loss in the dead space.....i ask what size, because i do 10 gallon batches, sparge with 10 gallons water in a 10 gallon round cooler...get ~14 gallons pre-boil volume.....
 
what size is this cooler? and yeah, it would kill the loss in the dead space.....i ask what size, because i do 10 gallon batches, sparge with 10 gallons water in a 10 gallon round cooler...get ~14 gallons pre-boil volume.....

its 10gal but the false bottom sits on a welded stand just above the spigot so I lose total volume. most ive done is 24lbs mashing at 1qt/lb was 7 gal And real thick but that was max for me to still close the lid. Normally I’ll mash at 1.5-1.65qt/lb collect 4 gal then sparge and collect my other 3.5 gal for 7.5 gal pbv leaving some left in the mlt.
 
Normally I’ll mash at 1.5-1.65qt/lb collect 4 gal then sparge and collect my other 3.5 gal for 7.5 gal pbv


normally i'll shoot for sparging with the final expected volume of wort....so in that case i'd tighten up the mash, and sparge with 5 gallons...but i still fly sparge with a colander...byron byrch tought me to brew, back in '96 though....lol
 
i'd do a three or four batch sparge in that case....and check the SG of each instance run-off.....or maybe something new, a half batch sparge....drain half the wort, then fill it up back to the top of the grain......maybe three times, pretty much what i do with my colander...


(you're making beer, i bet you don't whip out calculator to figure mols of sugar to, ethanol and co2 produced? or maybe you do, but only if you still bottle...:D)

At first I didn’t get this but now as I’m mashing in I was thinking about this not sure if I’m on it but here’s what I was thinking. So I’d drain first runnings and do a single sparge. Drain off half the vol into pot, added it back in stir it up and do this like 3 times so like a hand powered recirculating then vorlouf and collect my remaining volume. At least this is what I was thinking of doing.
 
IMO, if I use both a false bottom and a bazooka screen, I get a stuck mash, or at minimum one that drains terrifyingly slow. I would go with the false bottom and use a dip tube or some of the batch sparge methods already described.
 
normally i'll shoot for sparging with the final expected volume of wort....so in that case i'd tighten up the mash, and sparge with 5 gallons...but i still fly sparge with a colander...byron byrch tought me to brew, back in '96 though....lol

so you'd thicken the initial mash? So in this case I did 6 gal mash in and 4 sparge. Wouldit be more beneficial to do say a 5 and 5 mash in sparge amount. so with that I’d prob get 3gal first running and collect my other 4 1/2 with the sparge.
 
My mash tun is a 3 gallon igloo cooler. I used to have a false bottom in there, but after dealing with 386* stuck sparges I finally gave up and bought a bazooka and I wish I had gone that route in the first place. I didn't think I'd have this clear of wort, and I haven't had a stuck sparge since.

I still use a mesh bag inside the cooler as a crutch, even though I really don't need to (I developed the habit when I got really tired of stuck sparges with the false bottom). I have noticed that when I pull the bag of wet spent grain out I have a little bit of liquid in the bottom. I've never bothered to take a gravity reading of it, but I typically sparge until the running gets to around 1.012 (+/- 0.002), so I assume that the uncollected wort at the bottom of my cooler is also 1.012ish, so I don't think I'm losing much. Next time I'll try to remember to take a gravity reading. Once I did use the uncollected wort to make pizza dough, which was pretty good.

Are you having issues hitting your preboil gravity?

*not really, but it felt like it.
 
My mash tun is a 3 gallon igloo cooler. I used to have a false bottom in there, but after dealing with 386* stuck sparges I finally gave up and bought a bazooka and I wish I had gone that route in the first place. I didn't think I'd have this clear of wort, and I haven't had a stuck sparge since.

I still use a mesh bag inside the cooler as a crutch, even though I really don't need to (I developed the habit when I got really tired of stuck sparges with the false bottom). I have noticed that when I pull the bag of wet spent grain out I have a little bit of liquid in the bottom. I've never bothered to take a gravity reading of it, but I typically sparge until the running gets to around 1.012 (+/- 0.002), so I assume that the uncollected wort at the bottom of my cooler is also 1.012ish, so I don't think I'm losing much. Next time I'll try to remember to take a gravity reading. Once I did use the uncollected wort to make pizza dough, which was pretty good.

Are you having issues hitting your preboil gravity?

*not really, but it felt like it.

ya know before I moved lhbs I was hitting my numbers consistently if not overshooting some so I stopped taking pbg numbera. Wasn’t tell I had to go to a new lhbs where I was missing my og numbers so Since I was using the same process I chalked it up to the crush so I went and bought my own mill and since I have been taking pbg reading just after I collect my pbv, mix it well then chill it and take a hydrometer reading. Today I was 2 points high with an extra 1/4 gal drained into my pot. So happy with that. I had to pull the braid today cuz runiff got stuck. That wasn’t fun with a mlt full of wet grain but got her out.
 
@olotti i was just tossing some of my ideas of how i would minimize losses in the dead space....i'd probably mash at 1.3qt/lb....and rinse at least twice, with warm water...i don't think pouring the runings back into the tun would dillute the dead space....

am i on a tangent? you did have a concern about dead space sugar loss?

i'm saying i'd mash with 3.5 gallons for 11lbs, then do two extra run offs with 3x3 gallons instead of just one, or as much as you normally use to get your pre boil volume, just split in half....it'd be a triple batch....lol :)
 
@olotti i was just tossing some of my ideas of how i would minimize losses in the dead space....i'd probably mash at 1.3qt/lb....and rinse at least twice, with warm water...i don't think pouring the runings back into the tun would dillute the dead space....

am i on a tangent? you did have a concern about dead space sugar loss?

i'm saying i'd mash with 3.5 gallons for 11lbs, then do two extra run offs with 3x3 gallons instead of just one, or as much as you normally use to get your pre boil volume, just split in half....it'd be a triple batch....lol :)

well today I mashed in at 1.5qt/lb and the braid got stuck so I had to dump out the entire mash pull the braid but then it worked fine with just the fb as usual. I only left like 1/2 gal in the tun after getting my pbv. I did drain off a little more and got 7.75 gal at 1.060 PBG 2pts higher than project 1.058 at 7.5gal but due to time Didn’t boil off enough maybe like a 1/4gal short and my OG was 1.073 for a little more vol vs projected 1.075 in 5.75gal into fermenter so I’d say it was pretty spot on. That’s at 70% mash efficiency. When I did tip the tun to see if I was leaving anything behind after I got my pbv it was all murky wort that I wouldn’t have wanted in my pot anyway.
 
That’s at 70% mash efficiency.


how many pounds of grain did you use? i need to punch it into beersmith.....(sorry you had to dump and clean, the mash) but should be able to pull at least 80% what the software tells me is BH effec......
 
how many pounds of grain did you use? i need to punch it into beersmith.....(sorry you had to dump and clean, the mash) but should be able to pull at least 80% what the software tells me is BH effec......
It was 16.25 lbs of grain
 
if you work on your effec, you could get 1.094 at 80% with that much grain.....

you might want to try a fly sparge, you've already got everything for it...only difference is draining slowly, and adding water as the level drops.....
 
if you work on your effec, you could get 1.094 at 80% with that much grain.....

you might want to try a fly sparge, you've already got everything for it...only difference is draining slowly, and adding water as the level drops.....


So essentially I’d drain my first runnings then just say a pitcher at a time add my sparge water with the drain opened to a slow runoff. how would I break up the pour so it doesn’t tunnel through the grain bed and is a vorlouf necessary or with fly sparring does the wort run clear right off the bat. I’d def give it a try on the next brew.
 
if you work on your effec, you could get 1.094 at 80% with that much grain.....

you might want to try a fly sparge, you've already got everything for it...only difference is draining slowly, and adding water as the level drops.....

So essentially I’d drain my first runnings then just say a pitcher at a time add my sparge water with the drain opened to a slow runoff. how would I break up the pour so it doesn’t tunnel through the grain bed and is a vorlouf necessary or with fly sparring does the wort run clear right off the bat. I’d def give it a try on the next brew.
 
i can't tell if you're joking.....lol

i use a colander and just every 10 minutes or so bring the water level back about an inch above the grain bed.....yes a vorlauf is still needed, but only at first runnings....

it does take longer, about an hour or so....but it saves me a few bucks on grain....

if you do it that way, the dead space will be so dilluted at the end of spraging, it would be irrelevant....

edit: i have tried draining dry first drain, then topping up, but it doesn't seem to matter....although sugar is water soluble, i think the fresh hot water serves to push it down just the same.....as @IslandLizard said in another thread, "Stratification is a thing", only in this case a GOOD thing....unlike extract brewers wondering why they got 'low effec', taking SG readings, you'll get higher! ;)
 
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i can't tell if you're joking.....lol

i use a colander and just every 10 minutes or so bring the water level back about an inch above the grain bed.....yes a vorlauf is still needed, but only at first runnings....

it does take longer, about an hour or so....but it saves me a few bucks on grain....

if you do it that way, the dead space will be so dilluted at the end of spraging, it would be irrelevant....
I actually wasn’t joking lol I’ve always batch sparged so never looked into the process of fly sparging or manual fly sparging at that mostly I’ve seen the use of a sparge arm. I know what it looks like and that it’s supposed to increase efficiency but that’s it.
 
I actually wasn’t joking lol I’ve always batch sparged so never looked into the process of fly sparging or manual fly sparging at that mostly I’ve seen the use of a sparge arm. I know what it looks like and that it’s supposed to increase efficiency but that’s it.


yeah i've seen the sparge arms, and the HLTs too.....i still just put my hot water in my PLASTIC fermenter, and scoop it out, and pour onto the grain through a colander, as the water level drops.....
 
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