Look at them. 61 parts to assemble, dismantle and clean each time. Then the silicon rubber seal snaps and Jen has to cover up the kid's ears again. It also sticks like Sticky the stick insect when he's stuck to a sticky bun. Fast flow or slow, it always clogs up. So it's back to the manifold filter. This time I want to do it properly, so start off with a CAD drawing:
I've no plans to fly sparge, so having the pipes away from the walls (to avoid channelling) doesn't matter, but I did it anyway. I'm doing it properly this time. The outlet is in the middle to minimise the distance to any part of the manifold. It has to be easy to assemble, take to bits and easy to clean, with no inaccessible areas you can't get a brush to.
The slots are on a 7mm pitch, and there are 114 of them, so I knocked up a jig to make cutting them neatly a bit easier (sorry for the blurry pic):
Using the jig to cut the slots:
I had to modify the outlet a bit because the hole in the side of the mash tun is a bit on the low side. The intention was to have as few soldered joints as possible and the right angle fitting was supposed to fit into the T with a nifty twisty clippy thingy, but because I had to cut it down so much there was no room and I ended up soldering it instead.
Look at those soldering skills; It looks like a bird shat on it from a great height. Good job I'm a bit of a dab hand with the file and wet&dry.
This is the possibly clever bit. I haven't tried it yet, so this might turn out to be the stupidest idea I've ever come up with. The idea is to add legs to the outer pipes so they are braced against the wall and against the bottom. With legs attached, the pipes drop into place and won't turn or drop off, even when whacked with a large spoon. The middle pipes are soldered to the end Ts so they don't need to be aligned either. The end pipes butt up against the end walls, keeping everything in place without the need for soldering or bits of string. You'll see what I mean later on in the finished picture.
Cutting a slot for the leg and trying it out for size:
Here it is, soldered in and with the legs bent into shape:
This is how they sit in the mash tun - you can see that they keep the slots facing downwards.
There is a couple of millimetres clearance, but the manifold can't accidentally come apart because it butts up against all the walls. You don't have to align the slots because it aligns itself when you drop it in. There are only 3 soldered joints so it comes apart almost completely for cleaning - just bung it in the dishwasher and it'll be fine:
So, in comparison with the old filter, it's got 13 parts rather than 61, it takes 43 seconds to assemble rather than 15 minutes and it's easy to use and clean. I'll find out if it actually works in a couple of weeks.
I`m liking the little spacer leg things 
), a beer hutch sounds interesting - I need somewhere to keep the new kegs cool during the Summer months
