Mash Lauter Tun from Coleman Xtreme 70 Quart Cooler

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alien, did you have to drill the outside wall of the cooler to fit in the pvc brace? if so, did you use a step bit?
 
Yes and yes. But I wouldn't recommend the step bit because when I did it I drilled out a bit of the inner hole too, which I didn't mean to do. If I did it all over, I would probably just snip the hole out with nail scissors.
 
My store, for some reason, offers a $3.08 rebate to go with it bringing the price down to $24.91.
Already have one setup for a mash tun, looks like I need a new camping cooler!

Very tempting - wish I had a Menard's closer!
 
Thanks again to Alien and GrogNerd. I finally put all of my equipment together and did my first All Grain batch last weekend. Everything went really well! I ended up buying the hardware and putty that GrogNerd recommended. I took out all of the stock Coleman stuff and just used the putty to seal it. I stuffed a little bit of it up into the cooler walls and then completely covered both sides of the fitting. The cooler wall feels super strong and best of all no leaks!

Here are some photos.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/brewing-equipment-60044.html

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/brewing-equipment-60045.html

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/brewing-equipment-60046.html
 
& I didn't use that much of that putty, only on the inside of the bulkhead to seal around the hole

used the gasket from the original spout + an o-ring on the inside to stop leaks (+ plumbers tape)
 
Yeah, I remembered you saying that you only used a little bit, but I wanted to make damn sure it didn't leak! It's not as pretty as your or Alien's builds I'm sure...but it worked great and was super easy to do. No cutting or drilling equals less things that I can screw up!

Now if I ever need to take that out of there I'll have to get a torch! Or a new cooler! That stuff sets up like steel.

Thanks again!
 
you're welcome!

what did you brew? how was the efficiency? did you lose much heat or did you use foil, like I do?
 
It went really well overall, but it was also a learning experience to say the least! Haha. I brewed a Sierra Nevada Celebration clone. It was the first brew with my new brew kettle also, a 15.5 gallon converted keg. The boil off rate was 2 gallons per hour! I did not plan for that! That is almost twice as much as my old kettle, and I ended up with only 4.5 gallons of actual beer instead of 5.5. I'm going to try not to boil it quite as vigorously next time and add a gallon to my sparge water and see what happens.

Beersmith said that my efficiency was only 55%. Not sure why this was so low. I bought the grain from my LHBS and had them crush it. I was told that maybe they didn't crush it fine enough. Not sure. The batch I'm brewing this weekend, I purchased the grains crushed from Northern Brewer several months ago. I'll see if that makes a difference.

The other thing I need to correct is my mash temp. I missed it by 2 degrees. I was shooting for 154 and I ended up at 152. The cool part is that my cooler only lost 1 degree in 1 hour, and that was without putting any blankets on top. And I can live with that.

The other thing is that I missed my gravity by a little bit. It was supposed to be 1.068 and it ended up being 1.062. Not too bad, but if I hadn't boiled the wort all the way down to 4.5 gallons it would have been WAY lower than it should be. Had I stopped boiling at 5.5 gallons, the gravity would have been around 1.050 which would not have been acceptable!

Overall, it was a success though. I just need to learn this new system and keep taking notes. It will just take time. I just started brewing last October and have learned a lot so far. I brewed about 6 extract batches, and then switched to partial mashes. All Grain was a little intimidating in the beginning. But after I did my first partial mash, I knew I was going to convert to All Grain soon. Either way the whole experience has been a ton of fun!
 
keep plugging numbers into your equipment profile in Beersmith, based on what you measure as a result of your brewing. it should eventually work out and raise your efficiency

my last brew I came up over on pre-boil volume, low on pre-boil gravity, but 76% efficiency

I can live with that, so the goal now is consistency
 
Thanks again man. I think consistency is the name of the game, whether you use software like Beersmith or not. Everyone's system and methods are different, and it just takes time to get everything dialed.

The only other thing that I didn't do was check the pH of my mash and sparge. I've read that some people think this is really important while others think it is the last thing you need to focus on after getting the hang of everything else. I think I'll buy some lactic acid and a pH meter soon and see what I find. I think I have a pretty good handle on everything else now...sanitation, fermentation temp control, water profile, yeast starters, etc, etc.
 
haven't gotten that far. I'm still working on technique too. and whether to use my tap water, filtered or not. (consensus in the brew club is that I should use bottled)

just started (restarted, I first brewed 20 years ago, but had to put on hold for 17 years because I didn't have room for equipment) in October, done 10 brews, only 7 AG, all but 2 of them in my Coleman.
 
stewart194 said:
Agreed! What is your take on measuring pH? Is this something I need to get a handle on right away?

My vote on this is no. Just use a good quality water source. I made many good all grain brews before I started playing with the water chemistry. Focus on getting as fine a crush as your system will allow and maintaining temps first. Then you can get your efficiency consistent so you can create recipes and hit the numbers you want. The only reason I'd worry about mash pH is if your efficiency is really low or you start detecting astringency or really sharp tastes (from very high or ver low mash pH). If you want to play with it some you could get some cheap pH strips. They aren't known for accuracy but you could make sure you're in the ball park.
 
My vote on this is no. Just use a good quality water source. I made many good all grain brews before I started playing with the water chemistry. Focus on getting as fine a crush as your system will allow and maintaining temps first. Then you can get your efficiency consistent so you can create recipes and hit the numbers you want. The only reason I'd worry about mash pH is if your efficiency is really low or you start detecting astringency or really sharp tastes (from very high or ver low mash pH). If you want to play with it some you could get some cheap pH strips. They aren't known for accuracy but you could make sure you're in the ball park.

I use 100% RO water and then add Gypsum, Calcium Chloride, Epsom Salt, etc to it. I've had really great results doing this with partial mashes. But I did have super low efficiency on this first All Grain batch also. 55% according to Beersmith. And I won't know if my first AG batch has astringency issues for another 5 weeks! I'm brewing again this weekend and am tweaking a few things, so we will see what happens.

Thanks though! That's good to know that you don't think it's super critical. I'm not going to mess with pH this weekend, but I probably will next time just to see. I found a super cheap pH meter on Amazon that I'll buy and try...and I don't think Lactic Acid is too expensive either.
 
One thing I've noticed since I upgraded from a 40 qt to this cooler is that it takes a while to drain completely even if I tip it. I get about 75% out fairly quick and then the rest takes forever. You might try draining it longer. Even if it looks like the flow has gone away there could still be a half decent amount coming out.
 
Ryush806 said:
One thing I've noticed since I upgraded from a 40 qt to this cooler is that it takes a while to drain completely even if I tip it. I get about 75% out fairly quick and then the rest takes forever. You might try draining it longer. Even if it looks like the flow has gone away there could still be a half decent amount coming out.

+1 to this

I usually need an hour to batch sparge. I'm thinking it would be faster with a manifold but this is working and efficiency is decent and there are other things I'd like to buy first....
 
I had a really good brew day yesterday. My 2nd AG batch after tweaking a few things was 72%. Quite a bit better than 55%! Northern Brewer crushed these grains for me instead of my LHBS in Kansas City. The only other thing I changed was adding 1 extra gallon to my sparge water. I hit my numbers and my final beer volume and I'm feeling pretty good right now! The ultimate test will be tasting the beer in 6 weeks, but for now all is well!

Do you think my LHBS is purposely not crushing the grains fine enough? The guy told me that he couldn't adjust it. He said that one of the owners sets it. They surely wouldn't do that would they? But do you think adding 1 gallon of water to my sparge could make my efficiency go from 55% to 72% alone?

And I timed my mash and sparge run off this time. Both took 20 minutes before they were at a pretty slow drip. I let them go another 10 more minutes and they were barely dripping at all when I stopped it. Maybe one tiny drip every 5 seconds. I did not tip the cooler.
 
How many of you have just used a long Stainless-Steel Braided Line instead? That's what I use in my 5 gallon Igloo Cooler, does that work well in the 52 and 70 quart XTreme coolers?
I used to use one, and it did not work very well. This type of manifold works great.
 
I'd be interested to hear comparisons of the 70 and 52 qt. Not sure if I went too big.
 
I'd be interested to hear comparisons of the 70 and 52 qt. Not sure if I went too big.

For me, I know that I won't be brewing beer larger than 10 gallons for a long time. I am still doing 5 - 6 gallon batches, I like the room in this 52 quart. I will definitely be doing a 10 gallon batch in the future, now that I have converted a keggle for my boil now. 70 qt for me, was just way too overkill.
 
For me, I know that I won't be brewing beer larger than 10 gallons for a long time. I am still doing 5 - 6 gallon batches, I like the room in this 52 quart. I will definitely be doing a 10 gallon batch in the future, now that I have converted a keggle for my boil now. 70 qt for me, was just way too overkill.

I debated for a while which one to get, but at the time I went to purchase, the 70qt was $10 cheaper than the 52, so I went for the 70.
 
I debated for a while which one to get, but at the time I went to purchase, the 70qt was $10 cheaper than the 52, so I went for the 70.

That's one of the same reasons i did the 52 :D This winter i found a place that had it on clearance for $29.99 with free shipping.
 
Used the same cooler, but made the inside very simple to remove



Was the version I made (not my video) just replaced the COPPER with SS fittings. Easy to clean and get fantastic results
 
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