My single experience with a false bottom and batch sparging was quite easy. Just vorlof and then let her rip at a rate that you are comfortable with. I used rice hulls in mine just in case. My valve was all the way over too! Ended up with about 72-75% efficiency to boot.

I see lots of people gravity feeding their pumps from the mash rather than sucking it out. probably for preventing stuck sparges.

Due to the fact that the pumps most of us use are non-positive displacement and can not 'suck' the fluid 'out'? They need positive pressure (due to the column height of fluid) to move the fluid.

Yeah, go back to braid.....

I have "no sparged" with my 10 gallon gott cooler with a stainless false bottom (no rice hulls) and had no problems whatsoever draining into my kettle. Now mind you that I am not doing excessive stirring as with adding extra batch sparged water to rinse the grains. Either way I had no issues when draining. I am always careful when starting my vorlaufing and open my valve just enough to get the flow going, then adjust from there to avoid any quick grain compaction and a stuck sparge. I then adjust my flow a bit faster once I get'er going.

But as Denny said if you are going to batch sparge 100%, then switching back to a braid would probably the best way to go!

Cheers-
Brewinhard

Keep in mind that you can use the braid as a material, but configure it for fly sparging. There's no reason you have to just use a single line if you're not batch sparging. Even if you want to do a manifold-type configuration, SS braid is a great material to consider.

I've used Denny's method many times and made some great brews, but my mid-life crisis included a Blichmann kettle system, so now I've got lots of sparging and/or recirculation options. However, I'm inclined to try batch sparging with these really beautiful false bottoms, because I can!

I know the temp won't hold as well as my coolers, but I kind of want to do some caparisons between fly, batch and no-sparge methods in the kettles. Denny, any sage words of advice to set the learning curve a little lower?

Who, me?????? Just the usual...give it a go, stay calm when things screw up, take good notes so you can fix it the next time. And no drinking til the wort's in the fermenter!