Hi folks! Having recently upgraded from brew-in-a-bag-in-a-cooler to a proper false-bottomed mash tun, I'm trying to work out how to do lautering better. At the moment I'm basically vorlaufing by repeatedly running off jugs full of wort and pouring them back into the top of the mash, and then sparging by just running water through a silicone hose from the HLT to the top of the mash. But I'm not entirely happy with how splashy the operation with the jug is, with the amount that I seem to be disturbing the grain bed, and generally with the slightly faffy stop-start nature of the whole thing. Am I right in thinking that the natural step up from where I am is a pump-based system for recirculating? Given that my mash tun has a pre-drilled hole for a re-circulation / sparge water inlet, it looks like the simplest possible setup for vorlaufing is mash tun tap -> hose -> pump -> hose -> re-entry inlet with the expectation of just moving the hoses around when it comes to sparging, and the more complicated but slicker approach would be to stick a three way tap before (or after?) the pump with the other output going to the kettle, and another one between the pump and the re-entry inlet with the HLT connected to the other input. Is that about right? Also, what's the right thing to have between the re-entry inlet and the actual mash to get nice, gentle, reasonably even distribution of liquid? One of those circular stainless steel thingies? Or just some sort of silicone hose with holes in sort of arrangement? Thanks!
If you want to keep it simple, what I use is one of those large stainless steel bowls that you can get in a dollar store. I drilled many samll holes in the bottom. I pour each jug into this bowl and let it drain onto the grain bed. I used to attach it to the top of the mash tun, but have found it easier just to hold it. It works great and costs a dollar or so, and a few minutes of time.
to prevent turbidity during re-circulation ... i place an appropriately fitted piece of aluminum foil poked full of toothpick holes atop the mash as a baffle and pour the vourlaf onto it.
I use a pump to recirculate wort in basically the manner you described. I have been puzzling over the same questions - right now I just use a silicone tube that is long enough that the wort coming into the top of the mash tun is deposited under the surface of the wort in the tun, minimizing splashing. But it's not ideal and I am trying to find ways to improve it. A couple of notes. First, when you start recirculating with a pump you might find, as I did, that there's a noticeable increase in efficiency. Second, I've had mixed experiences, but on at least one occasion I was able to achieve crystal clear wort into the kettle, and the beer was also very pleasingly clear. The head retention also improved quite a bit relative to my normal beers. I wish I could consistently achieve this effect, but so far it's been hit or miss.
So I've had some further thought, and hit on what seems like a plan. My current thinking is that I'll get a pump to recirculate and to transfer wort into the boiler, because all the stop-start stuff with jugs is a drag. However, rather than trying to rig up a proper return manifold at this stage, I'm basically just going to run the hose from the pump back into the top of the wort, but with the top part of a metal steamer pan (which I've already got) suspended so it hangs a bit below the surface - I think that ought to be enough to disperse the flow a bit and avoid channeling. Hopefully this setup will also make it easy to go from vorlaufing to sparging without needing extra fittings, too, as it'll just be a case of moving a couple of hoses around. Now to go pump shopping...
My simple setup. Get a sight glass and ball valves on both sides of the pump to slow flow. There was also just enough room to screw the pump to the cooler.
In my opinion, the sight glass is nice to have, not have to have. You'll want a ball valve although it may be built in (the RipTide pump has one, or rather a needle valve, same concept - this is a factor in considering the price by the way). The usual advice is to put it after the pump, not before, to avoid cavitation. This reminds me that it's helpful if you can set up the mash tun so that you can feed the wort down into the pump by gravity. Once the pump is going it doesn't matter much, but to get the pump primed you're going to need to get the wort into the pump, and it's much easier if it just flows down into it. Oh also this might go without saying, but you'll want to clamp all your hoses. I find that the clamps with the big colorful handles are nice, but whatever works for you.
If you mean butterfly clamps like the one pictured below, at one point I had replaced just about every clamp in my system with these (of various sizes/colors), just because they are so easy to use. Then they started failing, one by one. All of them. Luckily, they always failed while tightening, and never while in critical use. YMMV!
Same here. I got them because they looked like a good idea and the description said they were stainless. I still think it's a good idea, just poor execution. Evidently only the bands on mine were stainless; the screws started rusting in fairly short order. If tightened too far the threads would jump off the band and they wouldn't get tight as I wanted (which could have been too tight).
Ah, I haven't had these problems but also haven't used the clamps heavily, maybe 10-15 times. That is a shame as they are easy to use.
Thanks all! I did the first brew with the new kit today - it went well! The steamer hung down nicely on a couple of straps and seemed to do the job of slowing down the inflow to the grain bed nicely. The idea of just running a loose hose end into the steamer was good - threading it through the handle of the mash tun kept it in place nicely (below the surface of the mash), and it made it a cinch to stop the pump temporarily and move the hose to the boiler when I went from vorlauf to sparging - the sparge water was also feeding into the steamer but just using gravity from the HLT. I got a mini-mag pump, because it's cheap and I didn't think I needed much power - it seemed fine. Yep, did that! Did that too! Lol, didn't do that - will do next time! Fortunately the hose barbs were pretty effective and I'd done a trial run with water and realized that I'd get a bit of dripping so I put the pump assembly on a baking tray to contain it. Plus it was just a few mils in the end, so no big deal as far as the brew goes.
