Dual Cooler All Grain Setup

I have been looking at trying AG in the near future. Just trying to read as much as I can understand the process. I have been looking at the dual Gott type cooler setups. I looks like a good start. I have a few questions and assumptions if someone wouldnt mind answered and confirming...

Why the two coolers? I saw a GREAT post by a member [sorry forgot name] but he posted great pics of his process with a SINGLE cooler.

1) Boil Water
2) Add water to grains in cooler
3) Steep @ 158ish for 60 minutes
4) take runnings, recycle till clear
5) run off into brew kettle
6) sparge off 2nd runnings into brew kettle
7) make beer (boil, hops, adjunsts, etc.)

So I get this and it seems simple to grasp and a good place to start for me.

My questions are

1)I see the two cooler setups offered, what is the second cooler for and where does it fit in?
2) When you are mashing at 158 how do you adjust the temp if its in a cooler and you need to raise the temp either to keep it in the mash in range and then to do mash out at 170ish, how do you raise the temp if its not on a burner?

I think thats all for now. Thanks

MNBugeater

The second cooler is just used to hold hot water as it drains from cooler 2 into cooler 1 (the sparge), and then from cooler 1 into the kettle. You need it because after the 1st runnings your kettle has wort in it, and you can't use it to hold clear water anymore.

When you heat your sparge water, heat ALL of your sparge water, and move it to cooler 2 (or a bottling bucket).

And you heat the sparge water in the same kettle that you heated your mashing water and after you have dumped that into cooler #1, then you refill your kettle, heat sparge water and put that into cooler #2 so its ready to sparge ? Do I have that right ?

Thanks...

That's right. I have a cooler, but only use it for holding sparge water. I'd recommend putting boiling water in the holding tank and adjusting the temp just before adding it to the mash tun by adding cooler water. A little extra work over having three big kegs and burners, but a lot easier on the back.

I use a single cooler even though I have two. Since I batch sparge I find it just as easy to dump the sparge water from the pot I heated in to the cooler as to dump it into another cooler and then drain it into the mash cooler. For fly sparging the second cooler would be the way to go.

I use the aluminum pot that came with my turkey fryer for heating the mash/sparge water which goes in my cooler and drains into my ss kettle.

You'll eventually see abbreviations for these "coolers" too. The second cooler you are talking about is the Hot Liquor Tank, or HLT. The first cooler is the MLT, or Mash-lauter Tun. Both are just brewing terms for what they do. Evidently once plain water hits the second cooler, we can't call it water any more, it is liquor.

You'll sound really smart if you use these terms A LOT.

This one-cooler setup is the one I am familiar with. Originally, I would use cheesecloth to put the grain on so it would drain - then I went to an old, well-washed section of a sheet because it was cheaper. Someone mentioned a false bottom in a previous thread - is the false bottom for the bottom of the mash tun cooler?

Dude said:

You'll eventually see abbreviations for these "coolers" too. The second cooler you are talking about is the Hot Liquor Tank, or HLT. The first cooler is the MLT, or Mash-lauter Tun. Both are just brewing terms for what they do. Evidently once plain water hits the second cooler, we can't call it water any more, it is liquor.

You'll sound really smart if you use these terms A LOT.

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HA.. thanks. I'll make sure i use those terms. At least I'll SOUND like I know what Im doing. So the term liquor or hot liquor is really JUST Water ?? Like the water in the sparging tank thats heating up is called Liquor ?? Thanks

I think im smarter already just saying liquor three times

hoppy said:

Someone mentioned a false bottom in a previous thread - is the false bottom for the bottom of the mash tun cooler?

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As long as we're being technical...no. But it would be for the bottom of a MLT (mash-lauter tun). Or a lauter tun. In a fancy brewery the grains and hot liquor are mashed in the mashtun, then transferred in total to the lautertun with some type of false bottom/filtration where the wort is runoff and sparged. However, most homebrewers (and some breweries, I think) mash and lauter in the same vessel (or MLT as it is often referred to).

there is also a name for the vessell inbetween the lauter tun and the kettle, i cant think of the word though its on the tip of my tongue (dysnomia) dave miller uses it...

BeeGee said:

As long as we're being technical...no. But it would be for the bottom of a MLT (mash-lauter tun). Or a lauter tun. In a fancy brewery the grains and hot liquor are mashed in the mashtun, then transferred in total to the lautertun with some type of false bottom/filtration where the wort is runoff and sparged. However, most homebrewers (and some breweries, I think) mash and lauter in the same vessel (or MLT as it is often referred to).

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you'd be suprised BeeGee. almost all the brewpubs and micro's i've been in use a combination mash-lauter tank. the larger, regional breweries i've been in use a lauter tun and a mash tun (like Spoetzle Brewery in Shiner, TX). which is cool, because most all brew their AG like we do.

Sweet...one of my goals this year is to tour as many state breweries as possible as I'm increasingly interested in the commercial aspects! (not for any personal commercial interests, however, I'm just curious)

BeeGee said:

Sweet...one of my goals this year is to tour as many state breweries as possible as I'm increasingly interested in the commercial aspects! (not for any personal commercial interests, however, I'm just curious)

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it's fun to go to one and start throwing around our brewing jargen to the tour guide. impresses the other visitors

but, it puts it into perspective when you go back and brew an AG, and see how simple it really is. even on a larger scale (which i think they have it easier w/ the equipment and ability to duplicate a brew all the time).

All these topics has been heavy on my mind as well as I'm trying to get evertying straight....

What I am trying to figure out is some of the pictures I saw in Palmer's book. He has a cooler MLT with a siphon comming in to the copper manifold, then a siphon going up and over the top of the cooler to the next stage. How does this siphon work with gravity? I would think you would need an output on the bottom of the cooler to siphon out to the next level.

I think it's a drain rather than a siphon. It's held above the liquor level to stop it draining. The wort is drained into a jug or vessel then recycled to the mash tun manualy. I have use a spigot on my mash tun.

orfy said:

I think it's a drain rather than a siphon. It's held above the liquor level to stop it draining. The wort is drained into a jug or vessel then recycled to the mash tun manualy. I have use a spigot on my mash tun.

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So in your setup... the bucket has the water you need (hot of course), the cooler is where you do your mash and lad, and the keg is your brewpot that collects everthing and then goes on a heating source to make the brew... is this right?

Spot on.

I do my boil out side.

I am trying to find a cooler now actually. If I'm going to brew 5 gal batches what size do you need. Thinking about doing the two cooler option. Are there any benefits with using the round ones as apposed to the rectangular ones? I'm also finding coolers classified as "Extream".... is this needed or is the regular ones just as fine?

i'd just go for a good 10 g cooler. i prefer the cylindrical rather than the rectangular coolers. just my prefernce.

It seems a matter of personal choice.
I heard people say the rectangular ones give a shallower grain bed and a larger manifold surface area and it's easier to construct a copper manifold for a rectangular cooler.

But I've not heard anyone using a rund cooler stating any problems.

Round coolers are indeed better than the rectangular ones:

- deeper grain bed aids filtering and extract exraction
- easier to stir
- usually rated for hot and cold. The rectangular ones are no necessarily food grade since they are not expected to hold drinking liquid (especially hot liquid)

This said, I know that many people brew excellent beers with a rectangular coolers as mash tuns. These coolers are also easier to find for cheap. But I choose a round one after doing some research. I went with a 5gal one since I got a HD gift card for x-mas and they don't have 10gal ones at HD. With the grain it holds I can easily do AG batches with gravities up to 1.055 - 1.060. Constructing a manifold is indeed more difficult for the round ones.




Kai

Question on your manifold-The others I have seen have the slots or holes faced down, yours face up. I had always thought that this was to prevent grains from getting forced into the openings. Have you had any issues with that? Other than that, looks good. I am on the fence right now between a round or rectangular cooler for my MLT, but I have some time, as I don't plan on doing any AG until march/April, and haven't even fabricated my stands yet, since I am moving the whole operation outside...

all the one's i've seen have had the slots facing down. but, if it works it works, right?

There was an article on Brewing Techniques, I believe, that actually endorsed placing the slots upwards. The theory being that if they face down they create a laminar flow with the smooth bottom of the cooler which could result in channeling. I'm not so sure...mine face down. My gut feeling is it works either way and doesn't make much difference.

Truble said:

Question on your manifold-The others I have seen have the slots or holes faced down, yours face up.

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I haven't had any issues with this yet, but I've used it only once so far . When I did some research about mash-tun designs I found somewhere that the holes should face up. But in my opinion it doesn't matter. The grains should not be able to clog the slits and holes, since, at the time of lautering, they are mostly husks anyway.

this is a page that I found very helpful:
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue5.4/palmer_sb.html

Kai

That vessel is a Grant!

Nice article! One other thing I found about the round ones is that they are a little smaller as far as physical size horizontally... looks easier to store in the room I have

Hey Kai, can you give some suggestions to how you made that manifold. Did you bend the copper or just cut and solder a lot of peices?

Michael_Schaap said:

Hey Kai, can you give some suggestions to how you made that manifold. Did you bend the copper or just cut and solder a lot of peices?

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Well, first I though I would make it from 3/8" tubing that I had left over from my wort chiller. This type of copper is easily bended, but I wasn't able to find a 1/2 to 3/8 reducer at the HD and the nipple though the hole had to be 1/2". So I used 1/2 copper tubing, a T junction and 2 120deg elbows. I cut lots of close slits into the copper with an angle grinder and bent it into the shape of the manifold. This was harder than I thought it would be since this coper pipe doesn't bent that well. I almost changed my mind to making a rectangular manifold. But I got it together in the end.

You don't want the diameter of the manifold to be too big, otherwise you may get channeling down the sides of the cooler. The slits have to be cut past the center of the pipe and very close together. pretty much as far apart as they are wide. It's best to build a contraption, from wood, that holds the pipe when you are cutting it. Make sure you have extra piping to start over or change your mind to a rectangular one.

For the Bulkhead fitting I used a 1" OD, 3/4" ID, x1/8" O-ring that fits perfectly over the nipple and seals against the cooler and the fitting of the manifold.

Kai