I'm currently making a mash tun from a recently purchased 26 L esky. I've drilled out the front of the esky, fitted a threaded pipe and tap and sealed the threads with thread tape.
So far, so good - easy and fun.
However making the manifold has been a challenge and I really need some advice. I bought 3 m of annealed copper pipe, thinking I could bend it into shape in one continuous pice but that proved quite difficult. That piece was discarded due to excessive damage from bending and drilling and with the remaining copper I cut the appropriate bits to make a reasonable looking manifold. However I don't have t and elbow pieces so I may have to wait till I can buy them before continuing. So as not to waste the last bit of pipe, can someone offer advice on how to fit the pipe into the elbow joins properly? I don't have a soldering iron (although I guess I could borrow one in a pinch). I have a couple of brass olive fittings to screw the manifold into the t-piece fitted to the tap/thread leading to outside the tun so should I be looking at getting more of those?
I have some other questions.
Firstly I have been working with this copper pipe for several hours and my hands are covered in a blackish deposit which tastes like copper. That's to be expected but I'm now going to put my grain in next to this stuff. How does it not affect the flavour of the wort and/or beer?
Secondly why is the manifold necessary as opposed to something simple like fitting the internal threaded channel with a mesh? Could I place an appropriate sized cake cooling rack and some mesh above the tap? Is there any major reason why other types of straining (besides puring through colanders) are inappropriate?
Sorry if noob questions are noobish but my brewing assistant insisted that I ask