Igloo Maxcold as mash tun?

heywolfie1015 said:

I have an Igloo Ice Cube Maxcold at home that I'm thinking about converting into a mash tun. (Here's a link.)

Has anyone ever used one of these? If not, do you see any major problems? Off the bat, the main problem I see is that the drain comes out the back near the wheels and is fairly high (about 5-6" off the ground). When I drain off water in the cooler, I always have to tilt it to get all the liquid out. I would think that would make lautering and sparging difficult since it would possibly disturb the grain bed?

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wildwest450 said:

How much is left behind? It's not a problem if you adjust your numbers for it. Beersmith has a deadspace adjustment in it.

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heywolfie1015 said:

A pretty good amount, actually. I would have to measure it tonight, but probably about a gallon.

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petep1980 said:

I used this one this weekend and had about a 1/2 gallon deadspace.

I did equip it with a manifold.

In 55°F ambient temp I had no temp drop over 60 minutes.

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hezagenius said:

You could use a piece of food-grade tubing from the spigot hole on the inside of the cooler to the bottom of the cooler where your manifold or other filtering device is. Then make sure the tubing opening on the outside of the cooler is below the bottom of the cooler. This should create a vacuum for you and take care of most of the dead space issue.

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petep1980 said:

See above poster, it works just as if you're syphoning.

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heywolfie1015 said:

That's great to hear. So, did you have the manifold on the slanted portion of the cooler over the drain? That was another issue I've been thinking about as I look at its dimensions.

This thing is a beast at temperature maintenance. I've come back to it a few days after a big party and still had a solid ice pack inside.

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petep1980 said:

Wait, my cooler is round. Is yours?

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