Picnic cooler: ease of cleaning?

I'm currently doing "mini-mash" brewing using a variet of pots and pans on the kitchen cooker!
I'm thinking of going to a converted picnic cooler + copper manifold.

Question: How easy is the picnic cooler solution to clean out after use? Even at present, using only 3 or 4 lbs of grain, the clean-up job can be quite a bit of work.

Mike

easy as pie!
check out www.cruisenews.net/brewing/ go to easy all grain brewing link on the left.
it's the way i started all-grain.....

DeRoux's Broux said:

easy as pie!
check out www.cruisenews.net/brewing/ go to easy all grain brewing link on the left.
it's the way i started all-grain.....

Click to expand...

Yes very easy. I just rinse with oxiclean in a little warm water filling to an inch or so to soak the manifold, tip out then rinse with a little more warm water. the whole thing takes no more than 5 minutes.

I do this while I'm waiting for my wort to boil, then theres not much to do at the end of the day.

I empty the picnic box on any spare ground in the veg garden or as a mulch. Never use fertiliser, result good crops & plenty of worms, they love it. Then just rinse the box out, easy.

I mash in a rectangular cooler, then dump it onto a 5 gal bucket with a striner in the bottom and a grain bag lining the upper. I dump the chaff into the compost bin, and hose it all out while fresh. That way, an unmodified cooler can still hold my beer later on.

I dump mine behind my neighbor's yard so the deer eat his shrubs. If I had a compost pile they'd obviously go there.

beegee your bad REALLY,REALLY BAD!! :cross:

Easy to clean out. In LA we don't have deer running around, so it just gets dumped in the green recycling with the lawn clippings and leaves. Clean it out with soap and water and it's ready to go.

BeeGee said:

I dump mine behind my neighbor's yard so the deer eat his shrubs. If I had a compost pile they'd obviously go there.

Click to expand...

ditto, i throw the spent grains in the 'no mans land' between our two properites, and the deer flock to the area, especially now that the ground is frozen. this also draws the coyotes, but i like watching them stalk and howl at the moon...

i simply rinse the cooler out, and spash some idophor around in it and it's ready to go next time around.

for all your brewing equipment, it's easiest to clean it out immediately after use.