my first mash tun

Here are some pictures of the mash tun i just built it may or may not help some people. I got the Igloo 60Qt from my father in-law and the SS braid aswell so i just purchased:
- half inch liquid tight fitting with a male at one end and a mip at the other (found in electric section of either home depot or rona)
- half inch female on both ends ball valve
- half inch male at one end and half inch mip at other end (copper) with half inch plastic hose 6 feet.
- brass square head plug (Watts A-737)
-2 plastic tie wraps

did a overnight test and it doesn't leak. cost me about $15 for the parts.
The only thing that worries me is the 60qt Igloo cooler the braid points upwards im not sure if that's gonna cause a problem or not maybe i will have to tip the cooler a bit to drain the remainder of the wort. Anyways i hope this helps.

<*edit*>ok i have just changed it around i purchased a S/S washer for the inside a rubber o-ring for the outside and a few steel washers on the outsde i also changed from pvc to brass on the inside and used a 1/2 inch by 1 1/2inch male to male coupler in the middle. Here are the new pictures let me know if i have to change anything ex: my hose it's vinyl can i use it or what should i use instead

oh well i don't know why it's not showing up the images i have them uploaded to flickr and i did press the yellow image button and pasted my url between
sorry.

I could be wrong but I think you have to be a paying member to upload images.

Looks like it'll work ok to me,

But is that connector on the inside of your cooler an electrical PVC conduit connector?

If it were me I'd go with either brass or at the very least CPVC instead.

Hot water and PVC are not a good mix and electrical conduit PVC is probably worse than water pipe PVC since it's not meant to hold potable water.

One reason is PVC is made with lead and will leech it into the water from what I read.

Click free. You just have to remove the ?v=0 at the end.

thanks little sparkey that worked

Im not sure what type of plastic it is i will have to look at the packaging today to find out. anyone else know if this will work?

thanks.

I just checked the Rona site and it is made with PVC anyone else know if this will be a issue? here is the link:


http://www.rona.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10001&langId=-1&selectItemId=&parentCategoryId=0&categoryId=12487&catentryList=&productId=50353

I honestly don't know if that small piece of PVC will make any difference or not. I'd look to replace it soon, though.

so it will leak led into the beer?

Right, it's not made to stand up to the heat that you'll have in your mash and you may get off flavors, from the lead or solvents inside. Again, it's such a small piece that it may not make much difference, but the fact is nobody knows. It's your beer, so feel free to give it a try and see. If it tastes solvent-like, you'll know why.

From Palmer:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Solvent-like
This group of flavors is very similar to the alcohol and ester flavors, but are harsher to the tongue. These flavors often result from a combination of high fermentation temperatures and oxidation. They can also be leached from cheap plastic brewing equipment or if PVC tubing is used as a lautering manifold material. The solvents in some plastics like PVC can be leached by high temperatures.

Click to expand...

I'd also swap those plastic tie-wraps out for metal c clamps. And change that clear pvc hose to some kind of thermo plastic rubber if you have to use a hose to get your wort into a boil pot.

There again I am not tell you to do it just saying what I'd do.

ok i have taken it all apart going to start from scratch again