lauter tun question

im building a lauter tun today out of a rectangular cooler using cpvc. my question is how do you put the holes or slots in the piping. i saw somewhere how to do this but cant find it now. do you need a drill, or a hammer and nail, or what?

I think they're just cut with a hack-saw blade. I haven't done this - I use an aluminum screen - but that is what I remember reading once.

Ian

You can use a hacksaw or a dremel. The width of a hacksaw kerf is about perfect for a lauter tun manifold.

32 tooth per inch hacksaw

thanks, the hacksaw works beautifully, should i space the slots at about 1/2'' apart. i read that but does anyone have a better method. because of some difficulties with finding a fitting to go into my spigot hole in my cooler, which still isn't solved, i have to wait til tommorow to finish this project. also, i read something in the palmer appendix online on building a mash/lauter tun about only cutting slots only on the long pieces, or something like that (i really didnt understand what he was saying-too scientific for a drunkard like me), but on someones picture of theirs in this forum there were slots on all the piping parts. is there a drawback to either method? does it really matter? am i making any sense?

Palmer suggests just slotting the long pieces to save some work & every half inch is good. Slotting everything won't gain you much.

I was reading the Palmer piece I think David is referencing here:
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue5.4/palmer.html
where he specifies the manifold design wrt dimensions, etc. But he also has this to say which is counter all the general wisdom I've read:

Likewise, the slots should face up or to the sides and away from the bottom to help prevent water from channeling along the floor. (Some brewers opt to face the slots down to avoid getting them clogged with grain, but I have not found that to be a problem.)

Click to expand...

Has anybody done it like this?

I slotted mine every half inch with a dremel tool, slots facing down. No problems at all after eight brew sessions.

One of my first lauter tuns was a rectangular cooler (20L or so) with a copper pipe manifold. Copper pipe is easy to cut the slots into with a hack saw. I cut the slots about half way through the pipe diameter and spaced them about 1/4" apart. I had 4 pipes running lengthwise. The ends were made up of copper elbows and tees. These were soldered together but the pipes were left unsoldered so that I could take the pipes apart from the ends for easier cleaning.
There are some good instructions and other explanations on John Palmer's "How To Brew" website which is basically his book on the web. Check it out!

Seb

i'm building mine out of cpvc. hopefully this wont give any off flavors to the beer, but from looking at other peoples setups it seems alot of people have used cpvc. anyways, im going to get the rest of the parts right now so i can finish it.

i have been using a false botton on the bottom of my keg converted mash/lauter tun, but it sucks. i get a stuck sparge everytime i brew. grains get underneath it from the side (doesnt fit flush) and clog up the spigot line. when i used my cooler converted mash/lauter tun, i used one of those stainless mesh screens attached to some copper tubing. it kicked boutte'. i ordered a bazooka T screen from Northern Brewer this week to use for my next batch. hope it works as good as my home made jobber!?!?!?!?!?!

Good luck, I'm just bulding a 25qt one from a colemans cooler and with a copper manifold, I'm using a dremil and using the grinding discs. It leaves no rough edges but its using 1 disc for every 2 slots. that's a lot of disc changing with around 150 slots!

I've used both CPVC and copper both work fine. Slots, holes it really doesn't matter just place them fairly equally. This isn't neurosurgery so a little bit off will not matter. A 1/2" diameter pipe with slots every 1/2" should be able to "clear" 2-4" on each side easily. The more pipes you add to the mainfold doesn't increase the efficiency...law of diminishing returns.
The big thing is to place the manafold tube nearly equally so that you have a equal draw. What works for most on a 52(? may have been 54 qt) cooler is to place two 1/2" pipes nearly the entire length of the cooler (capped on the ends or make a a square) with slots into a 90 deg elbow that fits into a T that goes through the drain on the cooler. You only need to slots on the long pieces and place them 1/2 the distance between the midline of the cooler and the cooler wall.

As for the placing up or down. I place down. The formation of low resistance areas at the bottom doesn't matter too much since the sugar solution has already been washed from the grain bed. Just make sure you have enough distance between the sides of the cooler and the manafold tubes (i.e. don't place it against the sides and space equally). Also, placing the manafold up will decreases total efficiency by not being able to "wash" > 1/2" of the bottom of the grain bed (give 1/2" tubing). If you consider a grain bed depth of 6" that is a loss of around 8.5% in extraction efficiency! With the slots down the average extraction efficiency for 10 gal batches is around 76% with the best being an 81.7% lowest being a 73%.

The dremal shouldn't be going through discs that often. It took one disc to do the entire cooler.

Good luck have fun and don't worry too much it will work out in the end.

-Eric

My manifold is a 6'' square that fits at the bottom of my round 5 gal. cooler. Cut slits every 3/8'' with hacksaw.

hope it works as good as my home made jobber!?!?!?!?!?!

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Whats a Jobber?

orfy said:

Whats a Jobber?

Click to expand...

It's just a slang term meaning "thing" or "item" or "tool".

In context:

This little jobber over here is good for that.

It's a redneck term and as such one I use regularly.

As far as using so many cutting discs, are you using the fiber reinforced discs?

DeRoux's Broux said:

i have been using a false botton on the bottom of my keg converted mash/lauter tun, but it sucks. i get a stuck sparge everytime i brew. grains get underneath it from the side (doesnt fit flush) and clog up the spigot line. when i used my cooler converted mash/lauter tun, i used one of those stainless mesh screens attached to some copper tubing. it kicked boutte'. i ordered a bazooka T screen from Northern Brewer this week to use for my next batch. hope it works as good as my home made jobber!?!?!?!?!?!

Click to expand...

Over the years, I've gone through several mashtun designs, starting with the Papazian bucket in a bucket, cooller with copper manifold (various iterations) and now I use a perforated stainless steel false bottom fitted to the bottom of a modified 50L stainless steel beer keg. I think it works pretty good.

The holes are about 3/32" dia. spaced about 3/16". It is a split disc design with a piano hinge along the middle enabling it to be fitted through the keg opening (which is about 8" dia). It rests on the bottom, just before the keg bottom starts to curve inward. So basically it covers the entire diameter of the keg (big surface). I have two stainless 1/4" screws welded on the bottom pointing upwards and the false bottom has two holes so that the FB slips over the two screws and is held back using butterfly wing nuts. The MT drain hole is in the middle of the keg base, under the FB and runs to a ball valve.

So this setup prevents any grains from getting in around the sides and I can stir like mad without risking to displace the FB.

If you want to see pictures, go to http://goatpunch.com:8080/seb
and follow the link to My Home Brewery

Cheers,
Seb

ScottT said:

It's just a slang term meaning "thing" or "item" or "tool".

In context:

This little jobber over here is good for that.

It's a redneck term and as such one I use regularly.

As far as using so many cutting discs, are you using the fiber reinforced discs?

Click to expand...

No it's the little carbarundum discs, the are about half the thicknes I'll go take some pictures. I was looking at the size of the crushed grain and thought the slot from the reinforced disc was to thick.

The first slot is made by the metal saw tooth discs, rubbish slot and when it jams it breaks the dremel shaft.

The larger slot in the middle is made by the reinforced fibre disc. The others are made from the thin discs.

Looks like you're doing fine. It's going to work great for you.

Thanks.
I've been sooo busy I've not had chance to finish it. I was hoping to do an AG this weekend but I think I'll wait instead of rushing. I still need to spend some time iguring the methods and amounts etc.

I'll be asking a few more questions yet.

sebbeerbiker said:

The holes are about 3/32" dia. spaced about 3/16". It is a split disc design with a piano hinge along the middle enabling it to be fitted through the keg opening (which is about 8" dia). It rests on the bottom, just before the keg bottom starts to curve inward. So basically it covers the entire diameter of the keg (big surface). I have two stainless 1/4" screws welded on the bottom pointing upwards and the false bottom has two holes so that the FB slips over the two screws and is held back using butterfly wing nuts. The MT drain hole is in the middle of the keg base, under the FB and runs to a ball valve.

Click to expand...

thanks seb, but mine is almost the same. it just doesn't fit flush (check my system in my gallery if you like). plus, i really like the design of the bazooka screen. i had real good efficientcy with my other set up, so i'll try this one on this system. and if it doesn't work like i want it to, i'm only out $16 bucks, and i'll go to More Beer or Sabco and get a better made false bottom.

thanks for the pics. nice set-up!

DeRoux's Broux said:

thanks seb, but mine is almost the same. it just doesn't fit flush (check my system in my gallery if you like). plus, i really like the design of the bazooka screen. i had real good efficientcy with my other set up, so i'll try this one on this system. and if it doesn't work like i want it to, i'm only out $16 bucks, and i'll go to More Beer or Sabco and get a better made false bottom.

thanks for the pics. nice set-up!

Click to expand...

Thanks! One drawback to my setup is if I do a lower gravity beer, the grain bed tends to be rather shallow. You could also try a copper pipe manifold at the bottom of your MT, and run it out your outlet. That could be an easy and quick way to solve your problem.

Seb