I had made the bottom filter and sparger out of 3/4 plastic overflow for ease of cutting and because I'm a bit tight. I had second thoughts after I had made it in case the plastic would leave a taste in the mash. I done a grain free run and tasted the water and it was fine. the only problem I had was because the bottom pipe fed the tap from the tap end, the back end was floating in the water. I changed it so the tap was fed from the back short length of pipe and all was well.
I put the grain and water in the tun, felt the filter with a paddle and it was holding fine. I had my digital probe in the mash and, Parva and Chris-X, if your reading, the temperature dropped less than a degree.
Time to sparge soon. I thought i'd leave my probe in the mash tun and use an analogue thermometer to check the sparge water temp. I was looking for 65c for the sparge.
By the time I had jugged the first running's back in, my sparge water was at 67c, close enough for me.
My air of cockiness and reading the Fahrenheit side of the thermometer was the key to this story.
After I had collected the wort and got it boiling I thought I would take a look at the grain bed. As I was removing the lid I noticed at first that the front piece of the 3/4 plastic overflow pipe sparger had bent out of shape with the 67 degree F (79c) water flowing through it. This was nothing to worry about because a millisecond later I noticed the rest of it had come out of its clips and gone for a dive in my mash. I say dive instead of swim because................. you've got it, it had sunk.
That's the last time I'm re-inventing the wheel.
This weekend I'll be using my traditional, tried and tested sparger and digital probe only.
On the other hand, if I could just.......................................................
