Looking at several options, including building a manifold.
But here is a crazy thought…can we take a plastic bucket, drill small holes in the bottom and around the lower perimeter, suspend it over the grain bed, and run the liquid through it? For even dispersion over the grain?
Cheap, and effective. One of the brew partners is hyper-cheap.
Any thoughts?
My first mash tun was a Zapap, described in Charlie Papazian’s books. It was a bucket with dozens of holes in another bucket with a tap. It worked great for many years until I bought Phil’s Phalse Bottom.
You sure can. You’ll likely oxidize the crap out of your mash, but you can do it.
I had used a Baker’s Square pie plate that already had holes in it when I first started brewing with an Igloo cooler mash tun. I now have an electric system with a HERMS mash tun. For recirculating, I ditched the Blichmann Autosparge that came with the setup for a Loc-Line plastic hose with a circle flow nozzle kit - works great for continuous recirculation on top of the grain bed.
More oxidation that we are now getting with the fire-hose recirc method? A hose that has a spigot, single stream, that is suspended above the grain bed. I am certain we have channeling / tunneling issues with this.
Do you have pictures, or an online source?
Found it: Amazon.com
At least as much…cant really qualify it, though. Your best bet would to return wort under the level of liquid in your mash tun.
I used to return under the liquid level with just a hose positioned on one end of a rectangle cooler with the discharge valve at the other end. It seemed to work fairly well.
I now use a manifold to return under the grain bed:
We would buy this, but it is 3/4" too wide in diameter. Our Mash Tun opening is exactly 12".
I don’t think the exact mechanism is as important as returning below the wort/grain level. On my Grainfatherl there’s a perforated plate on top of the grain. There are a couple inches of wort above the plate. I do my wort return with a hose on top of the plate, below the wort level. The plate distributes it so there’s no channelling.
oh so HSA is still a thing?
Makes sense. Thanks.
Think we will add one of these, a Pico-Style false bottom. This will sit on top of the grain bed, and evenly distribute the liquid over the grain.
Looks like a good thing.
Do you have keggle? I do, 12 inch opening, 15 1/4 interior dia, the false bottom will fit. it might be tricky to get the two halves to match on top ofe the grain bed.
For some styles, not so much. For Helles, Kölsch, and German Pilsners it is a thing.
This is what I use with the Grainfather, in case it might work for you. https://shop.grainfather.com/top-perforated-plate-with-seal.html
Yes, that’s what we have. Will “smooth” out the grain surface for a good fit.
Has anyone actually compared using a manifold vs a single hose for returning flow in a continuous sparge situation? Seems to me that the flow is driven by the shape of the tun and the false bottom, and should be independent of where the top is filling from as long as the liquid level is above the top of the grain.
The only information I remember on flow through grainbed was from Palmer.
http://howtobrew.com/book/appendices/appendix-d/tun-geometry-and-flow-potential
We have been using a hose with a flow control valve. The liquid does not disperse evenly, with “hot spots” forming in the grain bed. Even moving the hose around on top does not help very much.
This false bottom should be a huge improvement.