Show me your mash Tun

I am currently considering moving to all grain brewing and have been looking at mash tuns and I am going to sound stingy but they are quite expensive.
I was wondering what makeshift ones people have made and what efficiency you get from them pics would be appreciated

48 Qt Igloo



Cooler ~$18
1/2" Copper pipe/fittings ~$10
1/2" Ball valve & fittings ~$20

Total time to build ~ 4-5 hrs

USMCBrewer said:

48 Qt Igloo

Cooler ~$18
1/2" Copper pipe/fittings ~$10
1/2" Ball valve & fittings ~$20

Total time to build ~ 4-5 hrs

Click to expand...

Looks pretty good

I was thinking about trying to use one of there and just wrap some insulation round it.

Coleman Xtreme 70 qt - $30 on sale
Stainless valve and fittings - a lot...haha you can go with brass to save a lot of money.
1/2" Stainless Braid - $10. You can get a smaller diameter, shorter one that will work for less.

I got my cooler at Goodwill for 5.99. I think the whole set up cost me well under $50 but I cant remember how much I paid for the copper piping. Gotta admit that cutting the slots with a dremel was a pain.

$30 48qt from walmart.com, and I had all the copper/fittings. Used a drillpress for the manifold, which can be taken apart for cleaning. Temp probe is useless as its reading 20deg low.

scorpien222 said:

Looks pretty good

Click to expand...

Thank you sir. I'm a very new brewer, and am going to be doing my first AG batch this weekend. Can't wait to try it all out!

436 batches of great beer with this guy....

USMCBrewer said:

Thank you sir. I'm a very new brewer, and am going to be doing my first AG batch this weekend. Can't wait to try it all out!

Click to expand...

Good luck hope it all goes well I am wanting to move to AG very soon.

USMCBrewer said:

Thank you sir. I'm a very new brewer, and am going to be doing my first AG batch this weekend. Can't wait to try it all out!

Click to expand...

Hope it all goes well I am wanting to move to AG very soon

Here is my Mash Tun. All stainless Steele to include the bulkhead etc..

I can't post a picture right now, but I took a sanke, removed the spear, cut the bottom out and flipped it over, a valve with a 2 inch tri-clover will attach to the ferrule that the spear came out of. Put a false bottom in and wrapped it with reflex insulation. Now I have an all stainless 15.5 gallon mash tun with no deadspace, that only loses .5 degrees over an hour

Actually I had a picture on my phone

Here is mine. Have some PBW soaking from the batch a made night before last.

You know you're a homebrewer when "show me yours and I'll show you mine" is talking about your Mash Lauder Tun.

the cost was the cooler and supply line, everything else I had, The stand will hold it at 45 degrees solid as a rock. Please ignore the ugly welds, I was in the dark and ran out of gas.

I like the keg mashtun. It holds a lot, easy to sanitize, will never taste like plastic, you can heat if directly during the mash if needed and it can be used as a boil kettle too. See photo for creating false bottom from the cut-out top. There is a stainless scrubber that acts as a filter around the dip tube, which is attached to a ball valve by compression fitting. Parts list- Used keg $50, ball valve and adapter parts (brass) $29. Lid- pyrex, from thrift store- $1. Scrubber 69 cents. I used a metal cutting blade on a grinder to cut the hole in the top and matched a lid for the diameter. I cut about a 10" hole. The metal cutting bit for the valve is just a metal cutting 7/8" hole saw on a mandrill (cost $8). My boil kettle is another keg. On that I just use a racking cane to transfer the beer into carboys for fermenting. It works fine but some people like to add a valve on the boil kettle too.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/new-mash-tun-56305.html

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/new-mash-tun-56307.html

I have since moved to a more stable cooler and slightly modified my tun, but basically the same.