Manifold or false bottom?

[waverz]

I built a small diy rims tube last week and tried it yesterday. It worked very well at maintaining temp and recirculating wort until wort stopped flowing out of my mash tun.

I am using a 56 quart cooler with a braided hose installed onto the bulkhead. This system worked pretty well when batch sparging but now I am recirulating the entire time it has its shortcomings. The braided hose and too restrictive.

I am thinking about building a manifold or a false bottom but am wanting some input on which one to go with.

I don't really want to spend a bunch of money but needs to be able to handle the flow without clogging.

I'm leaving towards a manifold just because I'm concerned grains could easily get through around the sides of a false bottom unless it is tight around all the sides of the cooler. Also being the plastic in the cooler is slightly deformed from heat, custom cutting a false bottom would be quite challenge.

Do you guys think a manifold would do better in this type of setup?

Here is a picture of the RIMS tube I built before I got to test it out with grains in the mash tun.

Please don't slay me about the electrical connections. They will eventually be mounted in a box and the tube will be mounted to the stand underneath the cooler. This was mainly for testing.

 

[Natdavis777]

Id say manifold since its a retangular cooler. You would get less channeling opposed to a false bottom

 

[thekraken]

What route did you end up taking and how has it performed for you?

I'm about to fire up my new rims tube for it's first brew and was wondering if my cpvc manifold was going to be up to the task.

 

[waverz]

I think I prefer the finer mesh of the braid. Maybe if I used a thinner blade to cut the slits in my cpvc manifold I would have been better off. I was getting a few chunks running through my pump with the manifold so I switched back to the braid.

Next time I brew I will be putting a copper wire pigtail in my braid. Pretty sure it got crushed during my last mash.