Mash Tun Help Please

[PistolPatch]

Today I finally have some time to spend on brewing. I was going to build a copper manifold for my esky so read through all the cooler conversion threads and realised that my 65 litre esky may be too bloody big to get a grain bed! You will see from this thread that I am working under severe space limitations.

What I'm thinking now is forget the manifold and just use the 2 bucket mash/lauter tun placed inside the esky where the fermenter is usually kept as in the following pic...



I have heaps of camping foam mat I could wrap around the buckets if necessary.

Despite the hazards of lifting the buckets to this height (which I have worked out), do you reckon this will work out OK? Any disadvantages?

Thanks in advance,
PP

 

[browndog]

PP that looks bloody dangerous, can't you put the esky on the floor ? If not then I would stick to trying to insulate the buckets with camping foam as you have suggested. You could even go so far as to obtain a cardboard box big enough to place the buckets in then stuff the gaps with camping or polystyrene foam. Think about it mate, one slip and you could be covered head to toe in 65C water, not a pleasant thought. Brewday should be as easy and user friendly as possible.

cheers

Browndog

 

[MHB]

PP

You will get sick of drilling small holes.

You have a large space to heat up as well having to heat the material that the cooler is made of, if you dont preheat the cooler your mash is likely to drop temp fast until it all stabilises.

Take the cooler down, boil a jug, pour 1-2 L of boiling water into the cooler, close the lid, and allow it to stand for 15 minuets while you get your self organised, this will preheat everything.

When you are ready to put the mash buckets into the cooler, empty it out and set it up as you have described.

And I do mean really sick of drilling small holes.

MHB

 

[Stuster]

PP,

could you buy a smaller esky to use as your MLT? Then you won't have to drill thousands of holes, can leave it set up as such, and get a decent grain bed depth? :unsure:

 

[PistolPatch]

Totally agree Browndog! I thought I wouldn't have to lift anything above waist high but I just did a test run of my plan and you are right. And then I was thinking of the dodgy handles on those plastic buckets! I wish I had some space in this joint.

Great idea on the pre-heating of the esky MHB. As for the drilling of hundreds of holes - a walk in the park. I do this all day anyway into metal!!! Can't fit another esky in this damn place Stuster and its the smallest size esky that will fit my fermenter and when needs be, keg.

At least I have 20 foot ot 5/8 copper to make an immersion chiller or 2 with. (Frequently requested links to immersion chillers are down so hopefully 5/8 is not too big. It was free. Also came with 20 foot of 4mm ID copper. Now what to do with that???) Think I'll go and wrap some round my gas bottle now whilst contemplating a sensible solution to the above.... March pump

I'll think on sitting the esky on the bench and then just jugging hot water across for the sparge. I imagine it's OK to do this. Better be!

Thanks guys.

 

[als_world]

Mate, you're torturing yourself with that esky. Why don't you have a look at one of the 36 or 57L round coolers that most people use for a mash tun. It easily holds a small corny keg for parties, and won't give you grain bed problems. Not 100% sure if it will fit the fermenter, but the 57L models are pretty huge inside. Take the one you've got back for a refund.

Also, don't worry about a flash shaped copper manifold or false bottom, just get some stainless steel braid, it works fine.

 

[PistolPatch]

Al, I'm hearing you brother!

Unfortunately, I don't have Corny's and the smaller eskys won't take my fermenter. If you were able to see my place, you'd see the problem. (The link I threw in Post #1 will give some sort of idea as to what I'm trying to acheive.) It certainly gets frustrating at times trying to pull this all together but I'm making some great progress and am just about there. To be honest, I've spent so much time on this now that I'm probably at the stage where I'm going to make this work no matter what!

On the plus side, today I knocked up the immersion chiller in about 10 minutes plus ONE trip to Bunnings - unheard of! I also was able to use the 20 foot of small copper tube mentioned above to solve a temp control problem which was nearly right but not quite. (The gas bottle works well for winding the copper.) So, it was great for me today to finally have a little time and energy to muck about and acheive the above.

So, it's just the mash tun now. Your advice is definitely right Al but I'll doggedly persist for another week as it would be nice to solve the problem and some moeny for other brewers who might find themselves in a similiar position though their number would be very few!

And, am defintely thinking stainless steel braid now.

Thanks Al for helping to alleviate the torture!

(You know the ridiculous thing? I'll probably only be in this place for another 3 months!)

 

[Ross]

(You know the ridiculous thing? I'll probably only be in this place for another 3 months!)

[post="119306"][/post]​

Where you heading pete? - Whoops, Pat

cheers Ross

 

[PistolPatch]

LOL! To a bigger place I hope! Going to try and solve the mash tun prob this arvo so nearly ready for the first AG Ross! Looking for a recipe without hops. Do you know of one? LOL!

 

[sintax69]

Why dont you try this use your esky and make a filter out of the quick connect hoses you will fined the info on here
Then get a thick peice of foam insulation the stuff with the best installtion rating it is usually a blue colour foam then cut it to fit inside your esky as tight as possable and wrap some tin foil around it what you are trying to do is make a floating lid that will sit on top of your mash the foil is just to keep the foam from getting water logged and clean from batch to batch then just push it down on the mash close the lid and bobs your uncle and beers your friend your mashing
One other trick i did to was have a sortish quick connect hose and put a couple of bricks under one side of the esky to raise it on the angle just to get some depth in there I had the water level just below the top lip of the esky with the foam floating lid on to main lid closed the esky was at a 30 -40 degree angle it all worked fine spilt some to begin with but soon learned how to fly with it

 

[sosman]

You could just try bunging in the SS braid and using it. You will need to figure out the thermal mass but you have to do that with any system. I have seen quite a few dicussions re optimum grain bed depth and I have never heard a genuine, significant problem that can be attributed to a thin (within reason) grain bed.

You would need to take care with your manifold pickup etc to minimise dead volume.

 

[Airgead]

I have never heard a genuine, significant problem that can be attributed to a thin (within reason) grain bed.

[post="119593"][/post]​

Most of the research I have done points to a wider mash tun being less prone to stuck sparges due to the lesser pressure of the liquid on top of the grain bed. A rectangular esky will have far less liquid per unit area on top of the grain bed than one of those barrel shaped things so the bed will not compact as much. A huge esky like that one should be absolutely immune to sticking .

You do need some depth though to get the filtering thing happening.

Solution to a grain bed that is too thin - just make bigger batches. :chug:

Cheers
Dave

 

[KoNG]

spot on airgead, with all the "no Chiller" talk of late PP, just get yourself a few cubes and stock up on fresh wort, after doing big batches.
Perfect

 

[PistolPatch]

Many thanks to everyone above. Won't reply in detail as there's too much good info and there's also been a slight change of plan today which affects nearly all of the above suggestions. Sorry about that!

I was able to spend a little more time on another aspect of my tiny brewery at about 5 this morning(!) which had the unfortunate side-effect of making it very difficult to remove the esky from the top of the fridge (see pic in Post #1). The good news though is that the esky is working pretty damn nicely as a lager fermenting fridge! I am actually impressed. (If you want to know what I did, I'll put a postscript at the end of this post. Exciting stuff. Well for me anyway!)

Seeing as the esky is pretty much stuck where it is due to the low ceiling, my latest thinking is, I'll hopefully move somewhere bigger in the not too distant future, so I might just use a damn bucket, some foam etc., to get me going in the meantime.

Or, how about this? Any thoughts on using a fermenter as a
mash/lauter tun? I have to get a second fermenter anyway and I was thinking that the moulded handles would make it a little safer to move around than the crappy wire handle on a bucket. Using a fermenter would fit in nicely with the multi-tasking, space-saving theme of my mini brewery.

OFF-TOPIC POSTSCRIPT: I have a 20mm pipe connecting the fridge to the esky. After trying a few ideas which didn't work, I had a look at what I had lying around and had an idea. I made a mini immersion chiller out of 7m of tiny copper tubing (4mmID) I had and put this in my fermenter in the esky. I then used a submersible pond pump I also had and stuck this in a 10 litre container of cold water in the main fridge. This recirculates the cold water (just) up to the chiller using 2 gas lines I had. Doing all this took only 40 minutes and it actually works! All I have to do is seal up two holes in my fermenter lid with some aquarium silicone and the job's permanent.

 

[als_world]

PP, I was at a store today where they had the 38L round coolers and also happened to have 25L round plastic drums. Just to check, I tried to fit the drum into the cooler. It almost made it, and would have only been a cm or two that was stopping it from fitting in completely.

I still think you would be better off getting a 57L round cooler (which would definately fit a 25 or 30L fermeter), use that for your "all in one", and ditch the esky you've got now.

Cheers,

Alan.

 

[PistolPatch]

Alan, I am absolutely spewing (sorry, I mean amazed,) at your post! Are you serious? Looks as though you have come up with a perfect solution for everything!

Oh man, why didn't I think of that?!!! Unfortunately, my all-in-one idea came after I bought that stupidly large esky that I have to ditch now ($120!)

I have to do a job tomorrow but hopefully it will rain and I can go on a quest for a 57l round cooler. (Not sure if you saw my Using as Fermenter as a Mash Tun topic but finding a 57lt cooler has got to be easier than finding a 25lt pail that is less then 30cm!)

Alan, you're solution is so obvious and clever that there must be a hole in it. If there is a hole, I certainly can't see it and I owe you a thousand beers.

P.S. Anyone know where to buy a 57lt cooler and how much they are? More $$$$

 

[als_world]

Mate, BCF is probably the go. They definately have them (Cosmoplast 57L) - http://www.bcf.com.au/index.cfm?fuseaction...=43&catTypeId=2 - it also has the dimensions on that link as well.

I seem to remember when I got my 36L, they had the 57 for around about $120. The closest store to you looks like Labrador. No affiliation etc etc

Good luck,

Alan.

 

[ausdb]

Today I finally have some time to spend on brewing. I was going to build a copper manifold for my esky so read through all the cooler conversion threads and realised that my 65 litre esky may be too bloody big to get a grain bed!

PP what is your batch size? I do 23-25-40L batches in a 50L esky with an ezy hooker braid manifold with no problems. For the smaller batch sizes it is is almost a no sparge / 1 shot sparge affair as I can add all of my sparge water in the one hit, get the bed set and running nicely then walk away and let it sparge itself.

 

[sintax69]

The Oz supplier of the keep cool

http://www.kookaburragas.com.au/fridges_coolerjugs.htm

57.0L, 45.5cm Dia. x 62.5cm H
36.0L, 38.0cm Dia. x 52.0cm H

 

[PistolPatch]

Thanks Al and Sintax for the details on the cooler. After doing my GST and finally sourcing a bucket that will fit in the square esky (from a beekeeping site of all places,) I've decided to not spend the extra money. (I can't return the current esky either as it's used now!) The round esky would have been a damn good solution though. Many thanks again.

Ausdb - That sounds very easy. I'm thinking of doing less brew days but doing 2 lots of 23 at a time as from what I can gather, this will add only another 2hrs to the day while saving me having to buy huge equipment. I have an 18 and a 20lt stockpot I can use as HLTs and so just need a large kettle now. I also have a 4 ring burner plus electric stove top so am hoping I can use all these to heat/boil enough water. Will be checking this out when I next get a chance.

Cheers
PP