Malted
Humdinger
- Joined
- 15/5/10
- Messages
- 2,301
- Reaction score
- 115
G'day all,
as a newbie to the game, I thought I'd try a partial mash brew as I have never brewed with grain before. So I thought I'd try a budget build of a mash tun, just to see if I might get a taste for the process. I know it has many flaws, but hey less than TWENTY BUCKS to build! It served it's purpose and let me have a go without shelling out heaps of cash for something I wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue.
So I started with a food grade plastic pail (bucket in Aussie speak), drilled a hole in it as low as I could, inserted a fermenter tap, made a nut for the tap from a 19mm female-female plastic fitting from Bunnings (aka cut a section off the internal threaded tube to make the desired sized nut), made a false bottom above the tap from a second lid cut down and with holes drilled in it (pushed down for a snug fit; had to trim it a few times to get the correct size), wrapped it all up in some foil bubble wrap that I kept from a package I had posted to me, then wrapped it in a blanket. Time for some pics:
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The budget mash bucket with the insulation layer.
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On the left is the cut down and drilled lid for the false bottom above the tap and on the right a virginal lid to be used as, well, a lid
Both lids are up the same way, just with the lip cut off the one on the left it appears to be NOT up the same way as the one on the right.
So how did it work?
Well it seemed to work OK. I wanted to mash at 68 degrees so I heated a pot of water on the stove until it hit 80 degrees (digital thermometer), dropped it over the grain in the bodgit & leggit mash tun, gave a good old stir, put an unmolested lid on it, measured the temp (70 degrees), wrapped it in a blanket and left it for an hour. Ok I couldn't keep away from it and was checking the digital thermometer now and then. It only dropped about 4 degrees over the hour!
So I drained some of the goodness out of it through the tap into a second sterilised bucket and returned it to the mash bucket. A bit of trial and error but I ended up sitting a plastic dish on top of the grain to diffuse the liquid flow & stop it disturbing the grain bed. It seemed to work well; I ended up with hot water going in on top of the grain and coloured wort coming out the tap.
I am kicking myslef for not having dropped the hydromoter in some of the wort (only did after I added other ingredients).
The same pot that heated the water on the stove was then used to boil the wort on the wok burner of my BBQ. Amazingly cheap and easy build that 'seemed' to do the job.
as a newbie to the game, I thought I'd try a partial mash brew as I have never brewed with grain before. So I thought I'd try a budget build of a mash tun, just to see if I might get a taste for the process. I know it has many flaws, but hey less than TWENTY BUCKS to build! It served it's purpose and let me have a go without shelling out heaps of cash for something I wasn't sure if I wanted to pursue.
So I started with a food grade plastic pail (bucket in Aussie speak), drilled a hole in it as low as I could, inserted a fermenter tap, made a nut for the tap from a 19mm female-female plastic fitting from Bunnings (aka cut a section off the internal threaded tube to make the desired sized nut), made a false bottom above the tap from a second lid cut down and with holes drilled in it (pushed down for a snug fit; had to trim it a few times to get the correct size), wrapped it all up in some foil bubble wrap that I kept from a package I had posted to me, then wrapped it in a blanket. Time for some pics:
The budget mash bucket with the insulation layer.
On the left is the cut down and drilled lid for the false bottom above the tap and on the right a virginal lid to be used as, well, a lid
Both lids are up the same way, just with the lip cut off the one on the left it appears to be NOT up the same way as the one on the right.
So how did it work?
Well it seemed to work OK. I wanted to mash at 68 degrees so I heated a pot of water on the stove until it hit 80 degrees (digital thermometer), dropped it over the grain in the bodgit & leggit mash tun, gave a good old stir, put an unmolested lid on it, measured the temp (70 degrees), wrapped it in a blanket and left it for an hour. Ok I couldn't keep away from it and was checking the digital thermometer now and then. It only dropped about 4 degrees over the hour!
So I drained some of the goodness out of it through the tap into a second sterilised bucket and returned it to the mash bucket. A bit of trial and error but I ended up sitting a plastic dish on top of the grain to diffuse the liquid flow & stop it disturbing the grain bed. It seemed to work well; I ended up with hot water going in on top of the grain and coloured wort coming out the tap.
I am kicking myslef for not having dropped the hydromoter in some of the wort (only did after I added other ingredients).
The same pot that heated the water on the stove was then used to boil the wort on the wok burner of my BBQ. Amazingly cheap and easy build that 'seemed' to do the job.
