stainless steel hop spider,,,, absolutely.
sparge?? i just do what the manual says - remember to pour from sparge pot and keep levels between the fin heights on the top grain filter. if you leave the water level to drip through the grain, you can wind up with a stuck sparge. i find my sparges go pretty quickly if i keep the water level right. in a practical sense, this means having sparge water ready to go the moment you lift the grain barrel out of the wort. you can't stuff around here. be on the money and get the sparge water flowing asap. your sparge will be easy. keep the water flow so it stays between the top filter and the tops of the fins. leave it too long (a minute or 3) and you'll have a slow or stuck sparge. i tend to do a full sparge in under 3 minutes if i'm on it straight away. then i lean the grain cannister on a 45 degree angle over the wort, to push the last of it out. and yeah - done the 3 minute gap and the consequential 15min sparge. think about it - water dragging through grain compacts it down, and makes it near impossible for more water to get through at some sort of efficiency rate.
the other tool i'd suggest is a decent length stainless steel paddle, but measure the paddle blade width first. don't forget you've got a retriculation pipe in the centre of your grain cylinder, so it will get in the way of a paddle that's too wide.
and when pouring grain in at the initial, gf supplies an utterly useless cap for the retriculation pipe. on my first use, i went sloshing around a few times in a pair of gloves trying to retrieve it from the wort. wrapping a slice of alfoil over the pipe works just fine. cheap, flexible and ditchable.
and my thoughts after 9 batches on the gf?? i wouldn't have it any other way. mag bloody nificent
