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New brewing set up - not working

DanBD

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Apr 7, 2011
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Hi all,
I batch sparge.  Just went from a 48qt retangular cooler with a braided stainless steel 'bathroom sink" manifold to a 10 gallon igloo with an 11inch false bottom.  Making the wort today, am still collecting the first runnings.  The sparge has stuck many times.  The 10 gallon igloo and false bottom seem to be very popular, so thought I'd try it out.  Not sure why so many stuck sparges. I crushed my grains twice with a BarleyCrusher set at 0.039 because I was hoping it would increase my lousy effeciency of 60%..  Maybe that's why I have a stuck sparge...?

Any suggestions?  Please!

Dan D
 
I use and igloo with a stainless braided hose and occassionally get a stuck sparge.  I've found I can get it going again if I just raise the hose to my boil pot up above the valve in the igloo so the flow reverses for a second or two. 

One problem with double milling your grain is the false bottoms have a specific hole size, which you could be clogging up with grains milled slightly too small.
 
Sounds like the double milling destroyed too much of your husk.  Having a good quantity of intact husks is especially important when using a false bottom setup.  The braid system husks don't really matter as much.  Try again and mill just one time.  Also a good vorlauf is important when using a false bottom as it takes a bit of running to set up a good husk filter bed to produce the quality wort you desire.  Be sure not to run-off too fast, that may be a cause of your inefficiency.
 
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