3 litres does seem on the high side.
Mine is only about .25 litre, but I have to tip it up at an angle towards the tap right at the end of the sparge to drain it all. Not a big deal, as I batch sparge.
I use only a small mash/lauter tun, a 25 litre willow cooler with a copper manifold.
Essentially zero for me - it's half an old hot water cylinder (with the curved bottom) with a false bottom in it, so it doesn't leave anything at all behind. Think it was about a litre with the old chillybin method using steel braid as a manifold.
I dramatically decreased the dead space in my mash/lauter tun by using some plastic chopping boards, They also nicely support the manifold which is a bonus.
Yup, gave it a good run for it's money with a dry stout - 20% flaked barely and 10% roasted grains ground into powder - was pretty gummy, had a little stuck mash cause I was a bit heavy handed on the outlet valve, other than that - no dramas.
Yup, gave it a good run for it's money with a dry stout - 20% flaked barely and 10% roasted grains ground into powder - was pretty gummy, had a little stuck mash cause I was a bit heavy handed on the outlet valve, other than that - no dramas.
Permalink Reply by MrC on August 8, 2009 at 4:01pm
I use a rectangular cooler with a manifold, when I get to the final stages of runoff, I gently tilt the cooler so that the heavier (higher gravity) wort makes it's way to the spigot. Deadspace isn't a concern for me because I'm confident that I got all the good stuff and that the deadspace is full of low gravity wort that I'm no longer interested in. Well that's my theory anyway.