Stuck Sparge- Help Please

[Harto]

Hi All,

I attempted by first AG brew last week and all the equipment worked fine except for the mash tun where the sparge continually stuck. The mash tun is a converted picnic box which I have added additional insulation.

I used 4kg of Maris Otter and 250g of Caragold with 10.6l of water. The mash settled out around 67 degrees C and I left it to mash for 60 minutes. When I came to vorlauf, I partially opened the valve and liquid started to come out but very quickly stopped. I tried opening the tap more but this made no difference. I tried stirring and this got a little more liquid out but again this was shortlived and stirring further made no difference. The only way I could keep unsticking was to blow up the outlet with the valve open (which made the mash bubble). I had to do this many times, meaning vorlauf/ sparging was problematic and my efficiency was rubbish.

I'll be trying different techniques/ setups in future brews but can anyone see anything obvious in the setup I have (pictures attached) to get me started?

My thoughts would be
1) Wort is enters the copper pipes through slots I have hacksawed into the underside. You can just about see where the slots are cut. Are there enough slots/ is the surface area big enough?
2) The tap is not at the base of the tun. Its probably about 5cm up so I've put a bend in one of the pipes and an elbow into another to get the pipes to the bottom of the tun. I figure it will work to start with and towards the end of the sparge I will need to use a siphon (not pictured) to get the last of the wort out. Does this arrangement look problematic?
3) The valve is not a lever valve, it is a ball valve and as such the valve is narrower than the pipe. Could this narrowing cause a problem?

All help appreciated! Thanks

 

[ManseMasher]

I think the problem might be as you say that the pipes need to be as close to the bottom of the tun as possible (resting on it), otherwise you'll get clogged from underneath. As long as your slots are narrow enough, the tap you use should be ok. How much crud was coming out in the wort?

For my tun I have a piece of flexible pipe linking the strainer to the tap so that the weight of the mash keeps it on the floor.

 

[Harto]

Hi. Thanks for the (very) quick reply!

The slots do actually rest on the bottom, the pipes then either bend or elbow up to a higher tap but there are no slots once the pipe moves away from the bottom.

Hard to say how much crud was in it since I have no point of reference. The wort was murky but I couldn't actually see any grain particles/ husks in it. When I emptied the tun, the slots didn't seem to be blocked.

Your arrangement looks ideal but I can't use a blowtorch so getting that arrangement in my tun using compression fits is tricky to say the least!

 

[ManseMasher]

Sent you a message.