$21 Copper mash tun manifold

I got all of this good stuff at HD for $21. I had no idea how to solder copper pipe, had never really even worked with it. I bought the 1/2" copper soldering kit, 4 90's, 5 T's and a 10' piece of 1/2" copper Type M tubing. Roughed out a plan and started cutting, just finished soldering the ends together. I left the long tubes unsoldered until I get them slotted, and I'm thinking of soldering one end of each in a staggered fashion so that I can take it apart to clean it. Anyways, here it is.


Advice needed on the following...

-What's the best way to clean this when I'm done soldering? Oxyclean okay?

-How does everyone attach this to their bulkhead? I'm going through a rectangular cooler so it's of course weldless

-What's the best way to slot this thing? I was thinking of using a drill press to drill tiny holes instead of cutting the slots, but not sure if I'll have access to one or not.

Also, I have about 32" of tubing left over. Here's what I was thinking...
Leftover Tubing Sparge Arm

A short piece comes through the cooler lid into the inside, to a T. Two short pieces come off the T towards the long sides of the cooler. Each ends in a T.
From there, I run two 8" pieces of tubing in each direction. These pieces would be plugged at the end and in some way opened up to allow water to come through (hopefully drilled, if that ends up working out above I'll just do it all at once) So it would basically look like a big "H".

As a reference, my system is a three tier stand gravity fed, running a 54Q Igloo Mash tun with a Keggle and IC. Let me know what you all think.

I did not solder mine, works just fine. Plus it is easy to clean. I would try to un-solder a few joints...if that is even do-able.

Like I said, it still comes apart...The only thing that I soldered are the two ends that have all of the T's, and they are not connected to the long pipes that run down the midde. I didn't want to have to deal with all of those fittings coming apart on me at any point in the procedure.

I did not solder my copper manifold either, makes it really easy to clean. My first cleaning I just used some dish soap and a green scrubby, then went with a 20 minute hot PBW soak.

I simply have a fitting screwed into my bulkhead and push a long piece into it. I'm not sure that will work so well with your design since your Ts are soldered in, I'm able to rotate mine to get everything lined up before pushing in.

Without looking at my manifold I just have 1 T and 4 elbows, I have 3 long runs that I used a hacksaw to cut the slits in

have a look here:
Mash Tun Manifold Slots? - BrewBoard

TerapinChef said:

-What's the best way to clean this when I'm done soldering? Oxyclean okay?

-How does everyone attach this to their bulkhead? I'm going through a rectangular cooler so it's of course weldless

-What's the best way to slot this thing? I was thinking of using a drill press to drill tiny holes instead of cutting the slots, but not sure if I'll have access to one or not.

Click to expand...

Vinegar works well to clean this, it will remove the oxide from the copper.

To attach to the bulkhead I used hose barbs and a short section of hose. My attachment point was more towards the middle of my manifold.

A hacksaw works for slotting but it is somewhat time consuming.

Bokonon said:

I simply have a fitting screwed into my bulkhead and push a long piece into it. I'm not sure that will work so well with your design since your Ts are soldered in, I'm able to rotate mine to get everything lined up before pushing in.

Click to expand...

I actually didn't solder the exit T in, as I wasn't sure how to attach it to the threaded shank coming through the cooler hole. I'm thinking that I may try a threaded fitting on the shank to a 45* fitting to the T, or just go T-90-threaded fitting. Not sure how much I'll leave behind with this setup, never fly sparged before. I was always running a SS braid/batch sparge setup, but after my sad barleywine efficiency I decided that I needed a fly sparge option, so I threw this thing together.

don't solder any more of it, especially that T. I like that I can rotate mine upwards after scooping out most of the grain, then pull it loose and get it out of the way.

I slotted mine with a dremel. Kind of a PITA and a lot of discs, but it's done now. Hacksaw is worse. A nice table saw with a metal blade set shallow and VERY CAREFULLY pulling it and pushing it by hand would be the easiest, I think.

TerapinChef,

This is how I did mine and is sort of similar to yours. I soldered mine so it would come apart in 5 sections and is easy to clean as well. The middle manifold is connected by a short length of 3/8 hose to the barb inside the cooler.
I cut the slots in the manifold every 1/2 and about a 1/3 of the way through the pipe with my angle grinder which I installed a metal cutoff wheel it worked great and only took about 45 minutes to complete.
I have not tested this new mash tun yet but it should work great! I thought about doing a test run with water just to make sure it drains effectively

So you just connect your manifold to your ball valve with a short piece of tubing?

TerapinChef said:

So you just connect your manifold to your ball valve with a short piece of tubing?

Click to expand...

Yes that is exactly what I do just use a 1 1/2 - 2 inch short piece of 3/8 silicone tubing. Like I said before I have not tested this mash tun yet but should work just fine.

mine is even simpler. I took the plastic valve off of one of the bucket fermenters I have. I drilled the hole and mounted it, then I use a piece of cheap vinyl tubing. It's about an inch long. One end is crammed into the inside of the bucket spigot inside the cooler, and the other end is on the outside of the copper T. It's soft enough to just smoosh in place and my manifold is ready to rock and roll.

You don't need water-tight fittings or anything like that, just a way to make the least path of resistance be through the grain, into the manifold, and out the valve into your grant or kettle.

I got the piece I needed to go 1/2" copper tubing-Female Threaded 3/8" to connect to my bulkhead. For the sake of saving space, I think I'm going to put a 90* fitting off of this to go right down to the manifold connection T. Any reason this won't work as a kind of pickup tube? I don't want to leave behind any more wort than I have to...

just slap it together and give it a whirl.

So tried the dremel tool with multiple kinds of cutoff wheels, including the one that took the top right off my keg, and wasn't happy with any of them. So I'm liking the hacksaw the most. Clean, straight lines, and not really too time consuming. Now drilling the holes in my sparge manifold? That's going to drive me crazy.

use a scratch awl and a mallet to tap small dents where you want the holes, then use a sharp drill bit and WD-40 as a lubricant and you should be able to get the drill started easily enough.

I was planning on using olive oil (foodsafe) and a dremel specific drill bit. Anyone have a suggestion on size? I'm thinking as small as possible...

you do need a starting spot, though, or you will skid across the rounded pipe until you make your own scratch that the bit can bite in. Then you will have a hole, but with scratchy lines around it.
Don't worry about using wd-40, just clean up after with a good cleaning in barkeeper's friend, then a regular wash and viola. If the olive oil doesn't smoke up and disappear in the dremmel heat, it might work, though.

Boy did I have a busy day....
Decided against the dremel after cutting one tube worth of slots, I feel like they were too wide. So I did the other three with the hacksaw. That was fun. Also finished the sparge manifold, drilled with 1/16" drill bit in the dremel after using a punch to set the spot. I may make the holes a bit larger, especially close to the input, as I feel I may be getting too much spray and not enough drip. And I need to figure something for the top of the cooler where the HLT input will connect. Also mounted a new weldless connection in my extra pot to use as a HLT. Here's the pics...

Grand total for overall cooler revamp= about $30 with some miscelaneous fittings and such. This included the kit that I bought to solder the copper pipe. (about 7 dollars)
Obviously, I had the ball valve setup and cooler already...and if I had been better at measuring and cutting my copper tubing I could have made the input line to the sparge manifold about 8" longer. (which I may still do) This would have allowed me to raise or lower my sparge arm to suit the grain bill of the beer I would be making, getting it as close to the top of the waterline as possible. Now I just need to figure this whole system out....and mount another burner on my stand. I think I might be allowed to focus on making beer now...

hey I just found today that you can get fittings at lowe's. They are compression fittings on one end and male threaded or female threaded npt on the other end. You could pop the compression end on your copper tube and connect a QD to the threaded end o fthe coupling and then pop on and off your silicon tubing from the hlt no sweat.
That looks like some good work! With a little mod once you have an hlt, you could drop in an immersion chiller and put compression-to-threaded connectors on it and run a herms system fairly easily (next project! they never end!).

btw, a light spray is okay provided you are watching levels and the spray is hitting a layer of water on top of the mash

Nah I'm not ready to spring the $130 for a pump just yet...Haven't even got my system figured out with gravity yet!

harley03 said:

This is how I did mine and is sort of similar to yours. I soldered mine so it would come apart in 5 sections and is easy to clean as well. The middle manifold is connected by a short length of 3/8 hose to the barb inside the cooler.
I cut the slots in the manifold every 1/2 and about a 1/3 of the way through the pipe with my angle grinder which I installed a metal cutoff wheel it worked great and only took about 45 minutes to complete.
I have not tested this new mash tun yet but it should work great! I thought about doing a test run with water just to make sure it drains effectively

Click to expand...

I picked up the 52 qt xtreme and coincidentally, I just made a manifold with exactly the same arrangement! Hopefully that's working out for you. (though I didn't solder, so I put the T's & elbow's right against the walls).

I cut the ball valve handle in half so that it would fit into that recess on the outside.

I have a compression fitting on the inside to slide the copper into (but I won't use the inner compression part so I can easily slide it apart).

On the inside of the inner wall, I have a brass washer that's the same diameter (3 cm) as the rubber insert the came with the cooler. When I tighten it all together, the walls are pinching together, but I can still rotate the whole assembly, so I'm a little concerned about the seal. Did you use anything else? Pump some silicon in between the walls?

This guy makes a point about cutting the outer wall away so you can tighten everything down on the inner wall (though the 'xtreme' inner wall seems a little thin):
A Homebrew Log: Cooler Mash Tun and Weldless Copper Drain Manifold

Adding to my concern:
BT - A "Cooler" Way to Ease into All-Grain Brewing [sidebar]
"Important: Be sure to place the sealing washer against the inside wall to prevent wort from becoming trapped between the inner and outer walls of the cooler (trapped wort becomes a potential breeding ground for contaminants). "

A good diagram here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/no-leak-mlt-bulkhead-design-87197/






I'm actually wondering about cutting a small piece out of the bottom of the cooler; removing the insulation from around (and below) the hole; sliding a piece up wood up between the two walls (with a hole drilled in the wood to pass the brass pipe through). I figure I could shape the wood to fit, it's a bit of an insulator, and I could really tighten down on the two walls for a good seal. Also, the bottom would be open to air, so moisture wouldn't be trapped between the walls.

Basically, I'm thinking the no-leak MLT bulkhead design like above, but instead of cutting the outter wall for the PVC pipe insert (#6 in figure), I'd slide the wood spacer up from the bottom, keeping the outer wall intact for more support.

Thoughts?

Continuing on in the more appropriate thread...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/no-leak-mlt-bulkhead-design-87197/index2.html#post1511717

Derek said:

I picked up the 52 qt xtreme and coincidentally, I just made a manifold with exactly the same arrangement! Hopefully that's working out for you. (though I didn't solder, so I put the T's & elbow's right against the walls).

I cut the ball valve handle in half so that it would fit into that recess on the outside.

I have a compression fitting on the inside to slide the copper into (but I won't use the inner compression part so I can easily slide it apart).

On the inside of the inner wall, I have a brass washer that's the same diameter (3 cm) as the rubber insert the came with the cooler. When I tighten it all together, the walls are pinching together, but I can still rotate the whole assembly, so I'm a little concerned about the seal. Did you use anything else? Pump some silicon in between the walls?

This guy makes a point about cutting the outer wall away so you can tighten everything down on the inner wall (though the 'xtreme' inner wall seems a little thin):
A Homebrew Log: Cooler Mash Tun and Weldless Copper Drain Manifold

Adding to my concern:
BT - A "Cooler" Way to Ease into All-Grain Brewing [sidebar]
"Important: Be sure to place the sealing washer against the inside wall to prevent wort from becoming trapped between the inner and outer walls of the cooler (trapped wort becomes a potential breeding ground for contaminants). "

A good diagram here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/no-leak-mlt-bulkhead-design-87197/

I'm actually wondering about cutting a small piece out of the bottom of the cooler; removing the insulation from around (and below) the hole; sliding a piece up wood up between the two walls (with a hole drilled in the wood to pass the brass pipe through). I figure I could shape the wood to fit, it's a bit of an insulator, and I could really tighten down on the two walls for a good seal. Also, the bottom would be open to air, so moisture wouldn't be trapped between the walls.

Basically, I'm thinking the no-leak MLT bulkhead design like above, but instead of cutting the outter wall for the PVC pipe insert (#6 in figure), I'd slide the wood spacer up from the bottom, keeping the outer wall intact for more support.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Derek,
I did not use anything in between the walls of the cooler. All I used was the orginal gasket that was on the old spigot. It has not leaked yet and I have used it many times with no issues.

Harley03,

What efficiency are you getting? Since I've got the same tun & manifold layout, I'm very curious.

I was hoping for 80%.

I got 77% (after boil) on my first brew, but I mashed a little thin (1.75qt/lb) & didn't compensate with the sparge volume (I didn't realize the grain bed was quite so low). I collected a little more run-off, but the final runnings still had a gravity of 1.018.

has anyone drilled holes in their manifold? i started drilling today with no problems except that i have a lot of metal shavings on the inside and out. the outside shavings are no big deal, but how do i get it out of the inside of the tube?

i hope this isn't hijacking the thread. i didn't want to start a new one and ask a redundant question.l

TerapinChef said:

I got all of this good stuff at HD for $21. I had no idea how to solder copper pipe, had never really even worked with it. I bought the 1/2" copper soldering kit, 4 90's, 5 T's and a 10' piece of 1/2" copper Type M tubing. Roughed out a plan and started cutting, just finished soldering the ends together. I left the long tubes unsoldered until I get them slotted, and I'm thinking of soldering one end of each in a staggered fashion so that I can take it apart to clean it. Anyways, here it is.

Advice needed on the following...

-What's the best way to clean this when I'm done soldering? Oxyclean okay?

-How does everyone attach this to their bulkhead? I'm going through a rectangular cooler so it's of course weldless

-What's the best way to slot this thing? I was thinking of using a drill press to drill tiny holes instead of cutting the slots, but not sure if I'll have access to one or not.

Also, I have about 32" of tubing left over. Here's what I was thinking...
Leftover Tubing Sparge Arm

A short piece comes through the cooler lid into the inside, to a T. Two short pieces come off the T towards the long sides of the cooler. Each ends in a T.
From there, I run two 8" pieces of tubing in each direction. These pieces would be plugged at the end and in some way opened up to allow water to come through (hopefully drilled, if that ends up working out above I'll just do it all at once) So it would basically look like a big "H".

As a reference, my system is a three tier stand gravity fed, running a 54Q Igloo Mash tun with a Keggle and IC. Let me know what you all think.

Click to expand...

Cleaning copper- The best thing I have found for my copper manifold is a soak in star san for an hour or so makes it shine like a new penny.

This thread was hijacked long ago...I drilled my sparge manifold. I took the handle off one of the brushes you get with your soldering kit and shoved it through each tube a few times to get rid of them. But probably didn't need to, on the sparge side it wasn't going to hurt anything...

i think i may just cut slits in the tube instead. with all these holes i've drilled, there is an awful lot of met burrs hanging down on the inside of the tube. i am just worried that there will be bits of grain and crap stuck to the inside of it making it a pain to clean.

A very tiny file would take care of them as well...although my grain manifold is slitted...