mash tun question

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Well I guess if your doing 5 gallons @ 1.100 you would be ok... Really though, your only problem is going to be grain depth and clearing your wort.
 
I have a 70 quart mash tun b/c
1. Rather have it and not need it instead of vice versa, I have over flowed it!
2. My session beers start at 7% abv
3. I have room to grow.
There is some dead space, but if the tun is calculated for and well insulated it's not a problem.
 
What do you mean 1.100...as in if that's my max og or minimum og?

kinda a joke on my part more or less....just saying if you have a 5 gallon batch that your making OG of 1.100 would probably have enough grain in it to fill the MLT or at least have a grain bed thick enough to be able to clear the wort.
 
That tun will be fine for batch sparging, but the dimensions and braid mean that it won't work well at all for fly sparging, particularly for smaller batches. If you are cool with that, go for it. :mug:
 
If you plan on batch sparging, it should work fine for 5 gallon batches.

If you plan on fly sparging, you will have two obstacles to overcome with that setup. The first issue is the fact that a single hose braid like that is going to cause channelling issues when fly sparging. Generally speaking, you'll be leaving large pockets of grain that go "unrinsed" as the sparge water bypasses them and runs straight to the hose braid, leaving you with really low efficiency. You could swap the hose braid out and use a manifold, which would help, but you still have another obstacle...

The second issue is that for a 5 gallon batch of low to medium gravity you aren't going to have enough grain in there to create a deep grain bed. It will be shallow and wide, which also contributes to channeling issues, even if you use a manifold. It's too easy for water to form short channels, drilling from the top of the grain bed straight to the exit points, and not contact much of the grain along the way. It's better to have a grain bed that's deeper and not as spread out, so that the sparge water has to travel through more grain on its way out, increasing the likelihood that you will rinse out any sweet wort and it will end up in your kettle rather than stuck in the spent grains.

It's kinda hard to change the shape of a cooler, so just think about whether you want to fly sparge before you buy.

Palmer talks alot about lautering methods, MLT design etc. Here's a page with some visuals that might help make more sense of my ramblings: :drunk:

How to Brew - Appendix D2

So if you really want that cooler, just batch sparge and forget about the above. You are just draining off the mash liquid, refilling, stirring it all up, then draining again (and repeating if necessary) so most of the points I've raised become moot. :ban:

And of course, there are some people who claim great efficiency even when fly sparging in rectangular picnic coolers and using a short hose braid, even though it's not an ideal setup, so take all my advice with a pint of homebrew. :mug:
 
I know stuff is more expensive in Canada, but my tun cost me about $100 to build. Still I should have spent an extra $10 and bought a slightly better cooler (I bought a 4 day, 48qt cooler, should have bought a 5 day cooler).
 
OK, I hate to threadjack, but this is the first I've heard that the SS braid causes channeling during fly sparging. I've routinely fly sparged with my SS braid for a couple years now, and regularly achieved 70-80% efficiency. I do have a notched reinforced nylon hose inside the braid; perhaps that is helping?
 
SS braid can cause channeling. More so on shorter grain bills and faster lauter rates. The notched hose inside the braid should reduce flow which would help. If you have a pretty heavy grain bill also the sparge water should diffuse more before it gets to the bottom where channeling is more of an issue.
 
I didn't say all SS braids were bad. It's just that if you want to use a single relatively short braid in a long/wide cooler, your setup is going to be much better suited for batch sparging.

With a taller/deeper cooler, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. And adding a perforated tube or the like essentially makes it into a manifold, and allows more uniform flow along the length of the braid.

This one is stuffed with a spring, which doesn't do much to limit the flow or make it uniform. You could easily be collecting all your runnings from the first 1-2" of the braid (nearest the outlet) and that is a recipe for channelling and poor extraction in a fly sparge setting.
 
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