Hi SBBB
The extra cable is a safety issue for me as I can move my BM on the SS tea cart around under the winch or exhaust fan I have a plastic joiner from Bunnings holding the 2 cables together as well as helping keeping liquid from the join and spoiling my day.
The copper lid helps with the hot break which occurs around 10 to 15 minutes into the boil. I boil at 102c to keep it rolling. The hot break is foamy and will spill over the edge of the BM. Cold water sprayed on the foam helps, or the copper hood acts somewaht as a cooling tower and helps prevent most of the foam spilling out.
You need to be super careful loading the malt tube, a few spilt grains will slow your brew day down by a couple of hours as you have to remove the mash, and water in order to clean the pumps of spilled grain. Thus the copper lid is a good safety measure.
I have had a gusher mash, but I think that by using some rice hulls, a handfull or 2 at the start of adding grain, some halfway and a handful or 2 at the end seems to control this problem. This seems to be particularly important with less than 9 kg of grain. If you use 9.5 to 10 KG of grain plus some rice hulls you should be OK. With respect, I tried MHB's method of juggling the malt tube, but this did not fix the problem for me.
The last couple of brews I have added the grain to cold water before starting the BM. This seems to work OK.
I cut my thumb on a leg trying to speed up the cleaning process last brew, just take your time and plod on cleaning methodically.
I believe that the only way to stuff up a brew using a BM is in the fermenting process. Just make sure that everything is clean and then sanitize. I have yet to have a bad brew out of my BM. I jumped off the deep end and started with the 50L
Recently, I thought that I should try a couple of Coopers kits just because I have not ever made a kit brew. One was super, the other very sour. And as I don't like sour beers, it got dumped. Clean and sanitize your fermenter thoroughly. After cleaning and sanitizing I like to fill my plastic conical fermenter with boiling water just before adding the wort, but this is way overkill. I have 22 solar panels on my roof so I don't worry too much about the electricity bills which usually are in credit
The main thing that sold me on BM was the footprint, it is small and easy to use as well as store. It is fairly easy to carry, but will not take kindly to dropping.
Good luck with the new filters, I would like to hear how they work, I think that read somewhere that they can warp and allow the grain to get around them. The BM is a beautiful piece of kit and you just need to sort out your process of brewing, and there is nothing like experience.
Good luck and keep us informed how you go. Cheers
