I constructed a mash lauter system from a cooler and I'm using the wahser hose braided wire filter method. I am concerned about the filter hose collapsing. I read about a year ago that someone used 18 gauge wire or something like that wrapped around a fat screwdriver to make a sort of pigtail coil to sit inside. Will 18 gauge BUS Wire work? It's not ferrous and will not rust. I'm just wondering if it's safe to heat up to sparging and mash temps. Not trying to add anything unwanted to the wort. I'm in the electronics field and have lots of it, but for the life of me I can not find out what it is comprised of. No one at my shop knows either! All I know is it is conductive. My guess is it's an allot of copper and possibly nickel? Any help?
On of my mash tuns has used the same braided hose (aka toilet braid, with the rubber liner removed) for roughly 100 batches and has not collapsed. It certainly looks well used, but it still works fine.
I understand but I am a control freak. I want a steady flow. My last one on a 5 gallon cooler collapsed. I just want to know if the bus wire is safe to use.
I agree with vike man, but since you are a control freak, why not find some stainless steel heavy gauge wire, wrap it, insert it and then you will have no concerns?
My immersion chiller was made from copper tubing and it would develop a very obvious patina between brew-cycles (2 - 3 weeks). You really don't want your wort to have any traces of that build up. It could be cleaned with a long dunking in Starsan, but I would recommend staying away from anything copper-based. SS is the way to go here. I use a SS false bottom now, but never had a collapsing problem when using braided wire.
I've coiled a length of 14 gauge copper wire inside a braided toilet hose (rubber liner removed) to keep it from collapsing from the onslaught of mash paddle abuse. MLucky in 2012 ... https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/building-a-manifold-for-a-mash-tun.15841/#post-194416 HM in 2013 ... https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...olers-why-the-round-ones.111424/#post-1645336
I second this. They work great. Do a search on "Mash Bazooka Screen". Lots of options pop up. Cheers!
Make a tube out of water safe copper coil. It's super easy. So is buying a keggle with a jaybird false bottom.
I too have used stainless hose braid for my tun's intake for well over 130 batches and I run a RIMS. There is just almost no chance that you will collapse the braid. However, I do limit how much head I draw with the pump on the braid. If you're just running off wort by gravity, there is absolutely no way for the wort level in the tun to collapse the braid.
They make quite a few hoses which are made to look like stainless steel, but are not. I even asked the clerk, and he was sure it was. But it wasn't.
