Yeah, I figured he was probably talking about Denny's site. Thanks for the link, Colorado; it will be useful for those who haven't done this yet. I looked at his site a LONG time ago and then again somewhat recently when Denny and I had a discussion in another forum. On my last look, I'm pretty sure that Denny's site was still recommending first runnings plus two sparges, which I pointed out to him needed updating because he is now stating that one sparge is enough, and I guess he has now fixed that. I did a little math during that discussion, and I've concluded that dropping the second batch sparge by increasing the volume of the first sparge would cost me perhaps three percentage points in efficiency, so I've decided to try it on my next brew session. However, during our discussions, I don't recall anyone saying that an infusion might be needed before drawing the first runnings; maybe I already had one too many and just can't remember. But that is counter-intuitive to me, so I'll need to give that some thought and maybe run a little math on that before I'd agree. Frankly, if it proves out that the first runnings should actually have the same volume as the only batch sparge, then it would seem more logical to me to just add the entire amount as strike water, ... but at the very least, add the infusion very early before drawing first runnings so that the sugar content of the water and the grains have a chance to approach equilibrium.
Now, as for Denny's mashtun design, we have slightly different procedures. He removes the drain from the ice chest and then presses a bung into the hole, which tightens everything up so there are no leaks. I, on the other hand, leave my drain on the ice chest and simply slip the drain tube through it and seal it with a couple of wraps of teflon pipe tape; it has never leaked nor pulled loose. He uses a valve and clamps and I don't. Other than that, our systems are basically the same ... except that my 'hose' is a lot longer than his.
He
claims that size doesn't matter, but that's not 'what she said' ... but enough of that macho stuff.
Denny used a hatchet to chop off the threaded fittings from reinforced water supply line (the water hose with the stainless steel mesh sleeve). I used a hack saw, but if you have a really sharp knife like a 'ginsu' or something, it will probably work, too. The main thing to remember is that after you've cut both ends off, do NOT try to 'pull' the mesh sleeve off of the hose; 'pulling' will only tighten it. Instead, you need to 'PUSH' the mesh off of the hose. My hose is 10' long, and it was still very easy to do. It took a little bit of time to push enough braid out of the way to be able to clamp one end of the rubber hose in a bench vise; you could nail the end to something if you don't have a vise.. Once that was done, I worked the braid down the hose by pushing any slack down the entire length a little at a time. With each push, I slid the slack down the lenght of the hose; it got looser and looser until about 1/3 was off the rubber hose, and then the entire mesh pushed off of it. Instead of folding and crimping the other end of the mesh tube, I crammed a short piece of wooden dowel into it.
Well, that's enough for now.
Cheers.
Bill Velek
