I have one session set up for a week from tomorrow, so I'll check back in at that point. in the meantime, i'm experimenting with the brew in a bag method.

Okay, brewed yesterday with a friend of the shop, well, actually i just assisted him. We ended up getting 70% efficiency. He didn't do anything we didn't do, although he did use a ss braid in his cooler instead of a manifold. same cooler though.

so compared to what i was getting, 70% is better, but not much. Once we get our new monster mill set up and get the grind dialed in i'm going to give it another go. Until then, the cooler's on the shelf.

I have been reading in Gordon Strong's new book that if your set up for a good fly sparge system, you probably won't get better (likely worse) efficiency with batch sparging. I wonder, what is the gap on your grain mill? It could be that your fly sparge system is really dialed in and when you batch sparge you are not getting as good efficiency because of how the malt is grinded.