Cooler mash tun - forget about hose clamps

Hi all,

I've been lurking here for awhile now.. learning a lot from all of you who are WAY more experienced than I am. I'm about a month into this excellent hobby, with an imperial nut brown in the secondary, and a witbier than just went into bottles yesterday (both extract)

I decided to go all grain, and was at Lowes gathering the fittings when I was wondering how the hose clamps would hold up - I saw some posts about the nuts rusting, and wasn't quite sure I wanted that in my beer. I remembered changing out my hot water tank awhile ago, and to make that job easier in the future, I used a compression fitting so the heater could just be unbolted and removed. Sure enough, Watts had it covered. I used a 3/8" SS toilet supply line 20" long and a 1/2" compression fitting (Watts part number A-221.) It fit perfectly and securely.

I only wish my cooler purchase went as smoothly. I picked up a 50 quart coleman xtreme 5 (red) and the drain is mounted on an angle, just enough so the washers are too tight on the top, and too loose on the bottom and as a result it leaks horribly.

Anyway, thanks for participating on such a great site - you guys have helped me along the way and answered questions I never even knew I had. I haven't seen any posts similar to this, sorry if it's been discussed before but I wanted to pay it forward with some info.

-Franco

I bet you could find some rubber washers to help with that leakage. Or, go with the classic 10 gallon round cooler option.

Sounds like a good solution, as long as the compression fitting is stainless

Thanks SilverZero - I'll probably get the 10 gallon round now..

conpewter, would brass cause problems? With a stainless hose clamp, aren't you clamping over top of brass anyway? I wouldn't want to use this if it's going to cause problems..

As i type this I'm doing my first batch in my home depot cooler tun. I got the kit from bargain fittings but i did my boil pot with a ball valve that I bought from home depot and just used the screw on fittings, teflon tape and the proper hi temp orings. both worked great for me, just wish i didn't live in a 600 sq foot apt!!!!

get the cooler from lowes if you can, the home depot cooler spigot is slightly recessed so you need extra washers to make sure you have clearance to get the valve all the way open. apparently the lowes cooler doesn't have that