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what's better for a mash tun?
What's better for a mash tun, a manifold, or a phil's phalse bottom? Or for that matter, couldn't I just use a fine mesh with some brackets on the bottom to keep the mash above the valve?
What ya got for a MT? I started w/ a stainless braid at the bottom of a 5 gallon rubbermaid, worked great, easy to clean, but you can bump it around w/ the mash paddle. I would think if you are using a taller round tun, rubbermaid, gott, or keggle tun, go w/ the false bottom, You can put a ton of grain on it and vigorously stir your mash w/o worries of knocking around the manifold. However if you are using an ice cube or rectangular or flatter tun, a manifold might be better. Or you could go w/ both, and reduce your vorlauf from a gallon to a keg cup. Just remember when choosing a tun, always go larger than you ever think you will need. You never know when you may want to do a BW or imperial and need a crapload of grain.
Thanks, I don't have any of the equipment yet, but I saw a good deal on a 10 gallot gott for 89$, and was thinking about buying it even though I'm not up to AG yet, let me get some partial mash under my belt first.
I noticed that if the tun was a stainless steel converted pot, it was a manifold, but in a beverage cooler, it was a false bottom. Then I noticed a do it yourself online article that had a manifold in a gott , so it got me confused.
One more thing, after, or before the sparge, can you press the mash from above using, lets say a 20 lb weight from an old weight lifting set, to get the maximum usage out of the grain? I've never saw this mentioned before, is there a reson that it's not to be done?
bruguru wrote:
Thanks, One more thing, after, or before the sparge, can you press the mash from above using, lets say a 20 lb weight from an old weight lifting set, to get the maximum usage out of the grain? I've never saw this mentioned before, is there a reson that it's not to be done?
You definately don't want to do this. You can pull the tannins out of the husks and really hurt your flavor. When you mashout you are making the sugars that got extracted more viscous and soluble for the sparge. If you sparge properly w/ the right temp, you will get all the sugar you need. Just keep good notes so you can scale recipes to match your systems extraction efficincy,
wow, great to know, another mystake avoided ha ha. I've never seen that mentioned before, this site definately prevents alot of trial and error.
Thanks again
Grest article in BYO this month about proper lautering efficiency. Basically says if you use a manifold try to have as many inlet tubes spaced close as possible, false bottoms are the best bet. when the flow of wort can only exit in specific areas it somewhat channels and does not evenly rinse all the grain. Check it out if you haven't already.
thirsty wrote:
Grest article in BYO this month about proper lautering efficiency. Basically says if you use a manifold try to have as many inlet tubes spaced close as possible, false bottoms are the best bet. when the flow of wort can only exit in specific areas it somewhat channels and does not evenly rinse all the grain. Check it out if you haven't already.
I can't remember where I read it, but I remember reading that the type of bottom that you have depends on your sparging technique. I use batch sparging (I'm way to impatient to do a fly sparge, and I'm fine with giving up a few points of efficiency) and heard that a manifold was more efficient for batch sparging. Conversley, I heard that a false bottom is better for fly sparging.
Again, I read this in passing and don't know how or why it would be true.
For simplicity, I think using a steel braided hose is the easiest way to go. Just be sure to keep the hose length appropriate. My hose is currently too long and ends up "crawling" up the grains when they get stirred.
The only system I have seen using braided hose is Denny's Cheap'n'Easy. I find it very cheap... as in garbage.
Grain crushes the braid and it moves around when you stir.
I use copper tubing with holes drilled in the bottom. A 5' section from Home Depot ran about $15, and it was plenty to cover the entire bottom of my mash tun.
False bottoms are fine if you can get the right size, but the last price check I did was about $25, and it was a plastic false bottom. I don't like that. Copper can hold considerably more weight.
If I use a stainless steel false bottom, does it need to be convex like the phil's?
No, my false bottom is flat as a pancake. I think the most important part is a good tight fit around the edges so husks dont sneek by. Your best bet is to get whatever cooler/bottom is sold to match. Check www.morebeer.com and I would again highly recommend to anyone getting into AG to get their catalog, even if you do not order from them you get a look at everything that is available. Northernbrewers is great too.
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