Mash Tun design questions for AG newbie

[BigYin]

Apologies if I manage to mess up any of the terminologies here!

So, I'm planning to build a mash tun - initially I'd been planning to follow Chard's design which uses two FV's - the base of the inner one being riddled with holes to act as the strainer, but that seems to fly in the face of the general rule "holes for hops, slots for grain".

Since I haven't started building this yet, and I just happen to have plenty of 15mm copper pipe lying in the garage, would I be better to use that as my filter??


Second question -when the hot water (liquor!) is being spreayed over the grain bed in the mash tun, I notice lots of people have made 'sparging heads' - another copper pipe arrangement to direct and spray the hot water over the whole grain bed.. - that presumably has one huge advantage - allowing the lid to be kept on and heat conserved during the sparging process? Is it therefore worth building one?

If the grain filter should be left such that it can be pulled apart for cleaning, presumably the 'sprayer' has to be sealed up, or it'll fall apart??

Finally - for the mash tun - what do folks geberally do for measuring the temperature? - disinfected hand held thermometer? probe? And what is measured? The whort?

One possible advantage of Chard's design is the void created under the strainer - a temperature probe could presumably sit in there??? :hmm:

Appreciate your input :drink:

 

[Aleman]

Either works for grain slots or holes.

The bucket in a bucket design is great but it suffers from a major flaw . .. the amount of dead space under the 'false' bottom. . . . This can be minimised by cutting the bottom off the 'inner bucket so that you end up with about 1 to 1 1/2" inches of side wall . . . this can be pushed much further down minimising the 'wasted' space . . . In fact it can sit on the back nut at the front and almost at the base of the outer FV at the back.

Although I have a spiny sparger . . . and am constructing one/two for my bigger tuns . . . I actually just jug the water from the HLT into the mash tun onto some perforated aluminium foil to prevent disturbing teh grain bed. . . . I'm hitting efficiencies of 85% so I am wondering why change :whistle:

 

[BigYin]

My FV's haven't arrived yet - hoping they'll arrive today - I'm contemplating ways to create a small platform for under the mash tun (and possibly the boiler) to let me fit the tap on the base rather than the side....

 

[BigYin]

well, the FV's are here, so it's decision time on the design!!

 

[BigYin]

I've decided to make the strainer from 15mm copper pipe, and keep that second FV as a spare for fermenting duties.

I'm also ditching the idea of exiting the tap on the base instead of the side as that would require a permanently attached base and that was presenting too many problems.

I'm remembering of course this is only the first build, and there's no reason to think I couldn't build a better one in the future once I've seen how this one performs!