Hi People
I have very little experierence in all grain brewing but after a Demo at The home of Ross I decided to switch to AG brewing. I followed with great interest the thread that organised a bulk buy of 57 ltr plastic coolers in Brisbane a while ago. I picked up one of these very cheap because it had a broken tap. On inspection it is evident that these coolers do not suit a false bottom because the housing that mounts the tap intrudes into the interiorer of the cooler. I decided to use a manifold and braided S/S filter. I have used this tun to batch sparge on two ocassions with low unacceptable extraction rates. The third time I batch sparged and suffered a stuck sparge and on this occasion to free the sparge I used the S/S paddle I have to stir and free the sparge. The result of this brew is the best extraction I have achieved. After much thought I believe the problem I have is that the wash water is flowing down the side and across the bottom of the tun and not through the grain.
I have three questions I am hopeing someone with more experience can answer for me.
1 Am I right in my conclusion?.
2 A false bottom which would have to be 50mm from the bottom of the tun is this too much dead space under the false bottom?.
3 Anyone have any other constructive suggestions?.
All help very much appreciated