Hello All,
I just finished building this manifold for my mashtun for my first all grain. I got the ideas from searches here and google. On a couple of links, they said I should not cut slits on the pipe that T’s into the discharge valve but dont explain why and then some dont say anything about it. Any ideas? thx
Maybe to keep the slits as low as possible to draw out as much of the wort as possible. Slits in the pipe that touches the bottom ahold be fine.
Efficiancy will suffer, as the wort will be drawn mostly from the first place, and high quality wort will be left behind at the others.
I should have said the two pipes on the floor that connect to the T that leads to the valve.
If you are batch sparging, where you put the slits doesn’t matter much as long as the slits are on the floor.
If you are fly sparging, based on the location of that pipe it should have slits. The sites that say not to cut slits may be concerned about channeling if the “pipe” is closely spaced to other pipes or is along the wall. Ideally, the pipes are equally spaced and not against the wall so that the flow through the grain bed is even.
FYI, you should create a siphon to capture the wort below the outlet by having a hose extending below the floor attached to your outlet while draining. Longitudinal slits along the floor rather than cross-sectional slits theoretically will capture the most wort.
My first thought was that not putting slots on that pipe would help maintain your siphon better. My gut says slots in that pipe would apply more suction in the first pipe and reduce the flow from the outer pipes. I’m not an industrial/process engineer and am probably missing some major point so I could (easily) be completely wrong. :
I batch sparge and would be worried about leaving a lot of wort behind with that setup without having a way to maintain the siphon.
Paul
I have slits in mine and have no issues. Mine is 120 quarts and leaves behind about 30oz.
With normal size slots, the suction is pretty much the same everywhere.