Mashing in a stainless sink

Hi,

What do you think of the idea of using a stainless sink for mashing?
The one I have is 20 x 27 x 9 (L x W x H) inches, which is pretty shallow.
also not sure what fittings to use for the drain hole.

Royi

Not a bad idea, but you'll want to insulate it around the outside somehow. Although if you were going to go to the trouble of doing this, you might as well just get a new cooler and make one that way.

You're either going to want to insulate it or circulate through a RIMS tube. I would make sure there is some slight angle to where you decide to put the drain or else there could be a large amount of dead space.

paulster2626 said:

Not a bad idea, but you'll want to insulate it around the outside somehow. Although if you were going to go to the trouble of doing this, you might as well just get a new cooler and make one that way.

Click to expand...

Agreed. It might just be simpler in the long run to buy a cooler. They are easy to convert.

BBL_Brewer said:

Agreed. It might just be simpler in the long run to buy a cooler. They are easy to convert.

Click to expand...

since when has homebrewing been about being simpler? complicate complicate complicate that process!

Sounds like a good idea to me, although i have 2 concerns. First you will need to fabricate some sort of false bottom for it which could be cost prohibitive. The other part is all of the drain hardware i have seen for sinks are made from PVC(your local hardware store should have a kit or something), although you could probably get some Stainless parts if you looked hard.

Thanks for the replies.
As Tinga says simplicity is not the goal

we're talking about 15-20 gallon batches.
no need for insulation because I'm going to use heat stick + pump for temperature control.
was thinking of BIAB bag instead of false bottom to eliminate dead space.

the main two advantages of using the sink is
1. getting a 3 tier setup for the height of 2 tier
2. no need to buy third vessel

If you are going to use the drain for drainage, then I think it would be fairly easy/cheap to make some kind of strainer/manifold that could be dropped into the drain and used instead of a false bottom. Dead space would be minimal. If you already have the sink in your brew area, this would be ideal. You could mash in it, clean it out, and then use it again to clean up after brew day.

I agree that this could be potentially awesome.

Did you ever come up with anything for the false bottom? I obtained a commercial stainless double sink that I want to mash and boil in. When you are referring to dead space in the sink is that just an area where the wort won't drain from?

Here is a commercially-sold version of what you are planning:

Brewmation

No affiliation, no experience, etc., but the link may be of some help to you.

Absolutely preposterous, you can't mash in a sink!

You beat me to it. There are some threads here about it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/br...-not-brew-magic-vs-b3-but-comparisons-163149/

There is also a guy in Australia who built what he calls the Beermatic 2000