I finally got a March pump delivered so it was time for some brewery modifications. First up, the manifold. I’ll be returning to fly sparging after a brief flirtation with batch sparging. Fly sparging, in my opinion, is more efficient – with an important caveat: the manifold has to have several collection points at the bottom of the mash tun, or channeling will occcur.

Cool visual effect, eh? I think this design should do the job, although if anyone thinks otherwise, please leave a comment. All in all, this is a fairly cheap job, under £10 including a pipe cutter, however it is a bit fiddly and takes a few hours. Next up is the hop filter, after the arduous task of hacksawing holes in the manifold, then hopefully i’m ready to brew on Friday – Dunkelweizen. I can’t wait to test out the pumped system.