I wanted to follow up from the BIAB thread without derailing it further. I tried out the stainless braid in my mash tun this weekend instead of the false bottom. I gave it a decent test, using a 50-50 mix of 2-row and wheat malt ground somewhat to powder in a corona-style mill. No rice hulls. All I can say is that it was f’ing beautiful. Opened the valve, wort ran out without any clogging or airlocking of the internal tubes and fittings. Vorlaufed one pitcher and the runnings were pretty darn clear, and both the mash and sparge drained in just a few minutes. This was with a half batch, which I normally would have done as a BIAB.
So I’m going to update my position on BIAB vs mash tun. With a properly functioning, properly draining mash tun, my opinion is that the mash tun is easier than a BIAB.
No shame in admitting when you’ve found a better way to do something in your individual system. It’s all personal preference, anyways. I’m just happy because I’ve been wanting to go to a simplified HERMS set-up, but the thing keeping me from doing so was not being able to get a good lauter.
Yeah, I know. It was supposed to be funny, with a little Navy OOD jargon, a slight reference to one of a thousand HERMS vs. RIMS vs. BS arguments littering the interwebs, etc. Nobody gets my humor :?
Funny thing is that I’ve used the braid for 15+ years and I just bought a false bottom from Wahoo to try it out. Gonna try to build a RIMS tube, but I’m still batch sparging.
Hey I laughed! No worries, but I did have to look up 1MC. :lol:
I think one of the main problems with the false bottom I have is the ID of the elbow. Stirring the mash would always get some grain underneath the false bottom, and as soon as it hit the small diameter in there, it would pack full and stop flowing. Then, as soon as you blew through the tube to try to clear it, the whole FIFA-ed thing would get air-locked.
[quote=“porkchop”]Hey I laughed! No worries, but I did have to look up 1MC. :lol:
I think one of the main problems with the false bottom I have is the ID of the elbow. Stirring the mash would always get some grain underneath the false bottom, and as soon as it hit the small diameter in there, it would pack full and stop flowing. Then, as soon as you blew through the tube to try to clear it, the whole FIFA-ed thing would get air-locked.[/quote]
heh… I love FIFA as a euphamism. I just wonder if it will bring on the bots…
I,m getting ready to try my first all grain batch using Denny,s system…I was reading Palmer,s How To Brew and read where he suggested useing a 1 inch diameter braid.(for a circular cooler ) i fiquere if i have have trouble i,ll try that…Tank… :cheers:
PLEASE just ignore that! I don’t think John has ever batch sparged. I fed him info in it for the latest version of the book. The diameter doesn’t matter all that much, nor does the length.
I went from a SS Braid to false bottom and have seen my efficiency go up. I also rigged up my own version of fly sparging, without buying a sparge arm, etc. It seems to work well. I plugged my latest recipe into BS this past weekend, and my numbers were spot on. When I used the SS Braid, the efficiency was a little inconsistent.
