Double Bucket Lauter/Sparge hole diameter?

[Matt Browne]

Hi guys for those of you who use the double bucket method, what size holes have you drilled?
Cheers Matt

 

[Matt Browne]

Can anyone help?

 

[Dave70]

Is that like a ghetto Brewmeister kind of set up?

If it helps, the gauze in the screen of my mash keg has holes around 2 mm. I still need to let the grain settle for a bit before drawing the wort off or else I suck bits of husk into the kettle.

Those holes look bigger than that. Might need to cut a disc of fly screen out of one of your windows and drop it in there.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Looks about right to me. If you recirculate the first couple of litres of wort that come out, it'll clear up and get rid of stray grain husks that make their way through.

Because of my 'coffee grinder' style crush (I'm not yet to buying a mill), I chuck in a biab bag in the lauter as well.

 

[Tahoose]

I did mine a little too big so I bought a $3 splatter screen from the kitchen section in Kmart, cut to size and use that at the bottom aswell.

 

[Alex.Tas]

somewhat off topic
if i was going to put my biab bag into this bucket, which is inside another bucket (like in LRG's thread) to aid in removing all the liquid from my grain bag, would it help to recirculate the runnings though the "grain bed" to aid in clarification? the runnings from my sparge is usually pretty damn cloudy.

or alternatively, am i wasting my time?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Roughly 2-3mm will do

Depends a bit on your grain crush. If you have a very fine crush you need a smaller hole, if it is course then you can go bigger

There are other factors as well, like if you use rice gulls, have lots of intact husks with a fine crush...etc..etc

 

[Matt Browne]

Awesome thanks for the help.
Greatly appreciated!!

 

[Tahoose]

somewhat off topic
if i was going to put my biab bag into this bucket, which is inside another bucket (like in LRG's thread) to aid in removing all the liquid from my grain bag, would it help to recirculate the runnings though the "grain bed" to aid in clarification? the runnings from my sparge is usually pretty damn cloudy.

or alternatively, am i wasting my time?

If you recirculate the wort at roughly 500ml per minute it should be very clear..

I use the 2 bucket method and I usually stop recirculating after about 6-7 litres have passed through the grain bed. After that I filter the whole wort through the grain bed plus however much sparge water i need to hit my pre boil volume.

The trick is not to open the tap completely as this compacts the grain bed and is counter productive.

Good luck.