tooldudetool
Well-Known Member
So I batch sparge with a round igloo cooler with a circular 3/4" stainless braid inside, which is the same setup I've used for years. Over the several months of brewing, my runoffs started taking forever to finish. The worst was a Thanksgiving weekend RIS that was literally an 8 hour brewday (compared to my usual 4.5 hours), it was probably my most frustrating brewday ever. So this may seem obvious to some of you who've dealt with this before, but I took a good look at the braid and realized it had slowly been crushed flatter and flatter over time, which didn't seem that bad until I manually squished it into a much smaller fatter round shape and realized just how compressed it had become. My next beer was a big IPA and my first runnings were out in what must have been like 5 minutes! Incredible! Man I felt stupid... So anyway, let this be a lesson to the rest of you with increasingly slower and slower runoffs, squish those braids till their fat and watch the beer flow like wine!! Just like in Aspen...
