ben the brewman

Recipes 

I brewed again on friday and checked my temp loss but my digital thermometer was broken. I used a analog thermometer and it didnt look like it dropped at all but it is a small dial and the increments are not that accurate so next time I will have a new digital thermometer.

kincade

Recipes 

I brewed 2 weeks ago; haven't had time to post photos, but it looked like I lost about 1.5* over a 90 minute mash.

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-kincade

ben the brewman

Recipes 

That's pretty damn good if you ask me.

HItransplant

Recipes 

Yeah, I'd take that

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kincade

Recipes 

Brewed 3x in mine so far, every time it's lost about 1.5*-2* in a 75 minute mash. This is with ambient temps around freezing (or 18* last time), so I'm very happy with it. I've noticed no less drop in temperature with this than the regular cooler AS LONG AS IT IS PREHEATED A BIT. The increased thermal mass of the stainless pot/liner will suck more heat out if it's 35* when you throw your strike water in. I just put a gallon of hot tap water in it while heating my strike water which solves the problem.

Attached are the photos I promised so long ago. Forgot to take a photo of the lid, which I attached to the stock rubbermaid lid for insulation, but it keeps temps perfectly. Thanks for the great idea Ben!

I'm debating on selling this and upgrading to a larger mash tun as I found an amazing deal on a Blichmann 15 gallon, but it's going to be very hard to find something that insulates as well as this.

Attached Images

   

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-kincade

ben the brewman

Recipes 

Hell yea man thats bad ass! I love the valve and thermometer in it. How well is the thermometer working for you? I want to put one on mine but always wondered how well they would work in a mash tun.

Your never gonna find a nice stainless steel mash tun that is insulated like this one. The blichman ones are nice but have no insulation.

kincade

Recipes 

Thermo works great as long as you have something to calibrate it against... I bought a thermapen a whole ago so all my thermometers read correctly now. Out of 5 not even one read within 3* of correct at 150*. This explains a lot on my previous beers and how many of my beers were fermenting too far out as I was consistently mashing low.

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-kincade

BeastOfBourbon

Recipes 

Just put one of these Mash Tuns together, found the pot for $40 on eek-bay and bought the cooler used in the classifieds for $15.00. Such a good idea, I just couldn't get comfortable with my mash sitting in that plastic cooler, love the idea of stainless and the insulation properties of the cooler.
The only piece that I might add is that I think I am going to coat the outside of the pot in urethane grease (release agent) and fill the gaps that I caused (removing the insulation to fit the pot) with GreatStuff. (BTW irrigation/aquarium tubing make really long flexible GreatStuff straws) I was not able to have as much control as I would have liked and I took a little bit more than I would have liked to in certain spots.
Just a thought..I'll try to post back if it fails or seems successful.

Cpt_Kirks

Recipes 

FYI - Amazon has the "Bayou Classic 1044 44-Quart Stainless-Steel Stockpot" on sale for $74.15, with free shipping, now. I just ordered one.

I'm only totally redoing my HLT and BK now, why not the MLT while I'm at it?



http://www.amazon.com/Bayou-Classic-.../dp/B000VXHKMC

kincade

Recipes 

FWIW, I built another and I'm going to sell it. Thought I could use 2 for the 'big' brew days but I found a good enough deal on a larger 15G kettle that I think I'm going to go that route instead.


I'll post photos in the classifieds in the next week, but if anyone is interested feel free to PM me. Same as the one posted above.

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-kincade