Aluminum in the mash

I know, I know…and I don’t want to start a big war about aluminum kettles but…

I’m working on a false bottom for my large (50 gal) mash tun. I’ve found some perforated aluminum that would be perfect in both hole size and thickness for strength to use inside my stainless mash tun.

What are your thoughts on this?

Why not use a stainless braid instead?

Weight of mash crushing braid? Fly sparge?

There’s a lot of talk on braids collapsing, I’ve had it happen and it sucks, I use a coiled copper wire in mine. That said, I don’t see why an aluminum false bottom would be any different than boiling in an aluminum stock pot. Go for it.

Weight of mash crushing braid? Fly sparge?[/quote]
Never had a braid collapse and I put up to 60# of grain in my MT - use a quality braid made for a gas appliance and you shouldn’t have any problems. For fly-sparging, just make a loop or ring of braid to allow for equal coverage of the bottom of the MT and you’ll get good flow. Mullerbrau has posted pictures of his setup.

Sorry, not trying to talk you into a braid, just wondering if you’d thought about it before going with a false bottom.

Well, I’m a little concerned that a braid won’t stand up to the ~430 pounds of mash sitting on top of it while also being hacked at with a ss mash paddle. :shock:

I will think about it some more. I use a braid in my smaller, 70qt cooler, but this system is 333% bigger.

I used an aluminum perforated pizza pan in a round cooler for years as a false bottom and lived to tell about it.