Deuce

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Have any of you made a mash tun out of ale buckets. Where you take a bottling bucket (with spigot) and place the ale pale inside that (with hundreds of holes dripped in the bottom. Thus making a false bottom. I was planning on doing this because it will only cost like 23 bucks total. I was thinking about wrapping the whole assembly (lid included) in Radiant barrier wrap. Let me know what you think.

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jmo88

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Waste of time IMO. My 10gl cooler cost thirty five bucks, and it's insolated. The braid and and ball cable etc was another fifteen. You'll save money in the long run by getting better efficiency. Plus it's much less of a nuisance...

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jmo88

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Ya know. On second thought, it's not suuch a bad idea. You would probably to just fine. You'd be limited to probably non or ten pounds of grain though. If you partial, then it's probably just fine

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bendavanza

Recipes 

+1
By the time you insulate that bucket setup you could have done a cooler. And the cooler can grow with your setup. Start with a braid and simple valve assembly or even a stopper with hose.

Revvy

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Yeah I agree with everyone...the 30 year old Zap Tap Gap Adap or whatever it was called when Papazian wrote the bible was great in it's day, it was cheap and easy and a great intro to doing AG...BUT like so many things in this hobby, that idea evolved and grew into the cooler mastun with toilet braid design. Which has the added benefit of actually holding in heat longer, and making for a better AG experience, with more likelyhood of success...and has a nice convenient ball valve.

But having said that...it still would work...it made beer for charlie and thousands of other folks back in the day...but it was one of those guys using that system who looked at a cooler one day and said..."Hey I wonder what would happen if I...?"

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Bobby_M

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A lot of good discussion here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/batch-sparging-zapap-101913/

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sterling214

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I used a free 5 gallon bucket from the bakery, and it held 10 pounds of grain without a problem. I also had it inside of a 4 gallon bucket from the same bakery that i drilled a hole in for the spigot from my bottling bucket. I mashed in a cooler thou, and still had problems maintaining mash temps. If you are trying to make something for free, this is the way to go. If you are going to spend money, I would just buy and modify cooler.