How to build a cool box mash tun

[Tony1951]

I butchered a tap fitting that B&Q were selling in a clearance sale (�£1, I think) to get the braid, then used a compression tee to hold the ends:

PICTURE

The copper pipe is only slid into the tee, not tightened.

Neat idea that. There are a million ways to do this stuff. How do you insulate that tun?

 

[AdrianTrace]

Neat idea that. There are a million ways to do this stuff. How do you insulate that tun?

Sorry, that's my boiler - my tun has a sawn copper pipe frame

 

[Tony1951]

Sorry, that's my boiler - my tun has a sawn copper pipe frame

:) I'm embarrassed now. Neat filter though.

 

[pgl150]

Great thread guys. Bits are all on the way!

Dutto. How did the drilled manifold turn out?

I experimented with sawing and drilling on a scrap piece of copper last night and i found drilling MUCH easier for me. If its working well I may go down that route.

Cheers

Paul

 

[keat64]

The issue I had with sawing was keeping the pipe rigid without a vice.
A strategic G-clamp and a 45° fitting pushed on the end to stop the pipe from floating about and it took no more than 5 minutes to saw each piece.
I put saw marks at 1cm intervals.

 

[HisDudeness]

Great thread guys. Bits are all on the way!

Dutto. How did the drilled manifold turn out?

I experimented with sawing and drilling on a scrap piece of copper last night and i found drilling MUCH easier for me. If its working well I may go down that route.

Cheers

Paul

Drilling should work fine as long as the holes are sufficiently small, I'd suggest 2-2.5mm but hopefully someone who has done this will advise.

 

[Dutto]

Great thread guys. Bits are all on the way!

Dutto. How did the drilled manifold turn out?

I experimented with sawing and drilling on a scrap piece of copper last night and i found drilling MUCH easier for me. If its working well I may go down that route.

Cheers

Paul

Paul,

I used a 2.5mm drill-bit and only broke one!

To ensure an even pattern I stuck the bits of pipe in the vice and used the edge of the vice to balance the straight edge to draw a single straight line.

I then punched starter dents in the pipe along this line at +/- 1cm spacing and drilled the first set of holes.

I repeated the process for the two other lines of holes and punched/drilled in between the first set of holes.

For the two "end bits" I just kept cranking the ends in the vice and checking until I could just see daylight through them.

I also used the vice to crimp in the ends of the elbows and tee-piece so that the assembly wouldt fall apart when it was installed; and it didm't so "Result!"

It took about five to six litres of lautering before the mash started to run clear and I managed to get the "dead space" down to less than a litre by not passing the end of the pipe underneath the outlet.

Finally, for sparging I knocked up a sheet of aluminium foil that sat on top of the grain bed and punched dozens of holes in it with a small Phillips screwdriver. It ensured that the spare water fell evenly over the grain bed.

Check out the photograph above for details.

Hope this helps. :thumb:

Ian

 

[pgl150]

Cheers

I'll take those points on board when I do mine. Bits have all turned up but I will probably have to wait until the weekend to get it done.

I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Paul

 

[keat64]

This is mine.
The black bit on the end, is a pipe mender 18mm to 14mm reducer.
The 14mm end fits inside the copper fitting, the 18mm end fits inside a rain water butt tap, which is my mash tun drain tap.
I normally fit it with slits facing down.

 

[anhtran313]

awesomeeee, this is exactly what i am finding. How detailed your tutorial is. Thank you so much for taking your time making and writing this post.

 

[mike-os]

Seems a lot of work to me when I can buy a bazooka strainer for a few quid

 

[JapanBrew]

Bazooka strainers are used in the boil kettle to strain out hop residue. Some people do use them to mash but manifolds and large false bottoms do the best. I've used and made lots of different kinds and manifolds and false bottoms are the way to go.

 

[fanus]

Hi all
When I build my mash turn i did not want to drill through the cooler's side wall. Was scared it would start to leak. So I made this plan.
It works great. All I do if I want to start the flow is to fill the siphon line with water and let it flow.

Cheers

 

[Notlaw]

Hi all
When I build my mash turn i did not want to drill through the cooler's side wall. Was scared it would start to leak. So I made this plan.
It works great. All I do if I want to start the flow is to fill the siphon line with water and let it flow.

Cheers

That's a good idea, I like that. This way I an still use the cool box for taking beer on picnics :whistle:

 

[ManseMasher]

Seems a lot of work to me when I can buy a bazooka strainer for a few quid

If you look at John Palmers' diatribe on mashing, you will see from his diagrams how mashing/sparging works better with multiple arms rather than one central one. I'll try and post a link for you.

 

[ManseMasher]

http://howtobrew.com/book/appendices/appendix-d/building-the-manifold

Here it is.

 

[mike-os]

for fly sparging i would agree, otherwise i fail to see any advantage... water in, stir, drain , repeat, makes no difference if the bed drains evenly as there is no channelling of " clean" water from the sparge bar through the grist, which is what you need to avoid with fly sparging

 

[ManseMasher]

Not sure. My thoughts would be it doesn't matter how the sparge is done, the wort will still need to drop through the grain. The flow will be the same through the grain bed no matter how it is achieved due to gravity? Therefore the exit points to the tap will be unaffected by the sparging method?

 

[pgl150]

Seems a lot of work to me when I can buy a bazooka strainer for a few quid

Bought one of these and fitted it to my boiler before I did my first AG brew yesterday. IMO it was money wasted! I should have bought hop bags.

Spent ages scraping hops off of it so that I got something actually flowing out of the tap! If I didn't do it then it soon became a trickle, if that.

Can't imagine it would be much better in a mash tun but I'll defer to the experience of those that have used it successfully.

Just my experience from yesterday that's all. :)

 

[Dutto]

Not sure. My thoughts would be it doesn't matter how the sparge is done, the wort will still need to drop through the grain. The flow will be the same through the grain bed no matter how it is achieved due to gravity? Therefore the exit points to the tap will be unaffected by the sparging method?

I've used the mash tun three times now. (What an improvement over previous efforts at AG!)

The first two times I put a layer of tin-foil with large holes punched in it on top of the grain to ensure even distribution and lautered the mash through it until it came clear.

I then started draining out the wort into the boiler and put a second layer of tin-foil on top with smaller holes punched in it so that the sparge would again be evenly distributed.

It worked fine so why I changed my system I just don't know!

On the last brew I had less grain to be mashed so I lautered without my "tin-foil distribution" system.

It not only took a lot longer to achieve a clear wort it also resulted in an uneven grain bed that varied from about 3cm to 10cm deep and made proper sparging virtually impossible!