Mash in Cooler, Lauter/Sparge in Bucket

I am looking to try some all grain brewing soon, but dont want to invest in a new cooler (my normal cooler dosnt have a spigot, and I dont want to drill into it) But I do have the original buckets that came with my starter kit.

I was wondering if it is possible to mash for 60-90 minutes in my cooler, then I can easily add a manifold to one of my existing 7 galon fermentation buckets, and lauter and sparge in there.

I would let them rest for 60-90 minutes then simply dump them into the bucket. I would start batch sparging immediately. I would probably have to heat my sparge water a touch higher to account for the heat losses in the non-insulated bucket as well as the loss as the bucket itself heats.

I have been doing something similar to this for my partial mashes and gotten 65-75% efficency. I just havent added the manifold to the bottom of the bucket, or done it with 12-15 lbs of grains yet.

Would this work? I think I might have all of the parts just lying around to try this soon.

The alternative is to try to keep the manifold at the bottom of the cooler and siphon the wort through the manifold and out.... This would allow me to keep everything in the cooler for the whole time.

Thanks guys,
Paul

You'll realize it's a pain in the neck after you do it and then you'll want to put a bulkhead into your cooler. You can go as simple as drilling a hole on the inside of the cooler big enough to jam a drilled stopper in, Insert a piece of racking cane, clamp a stainless braid on the inside and some vinyl tubing on the outside. If you need to turn it back into a regular cooler, just replace the drilled stopper with a solid one.

You don't need a ball valve, you can just clamp the tubing to the handle of the cooler to hold it up past the liquid level or use a cheap inline valve on the tubing.

I agree with Bobby, but I'll also say that I did exactly what you're talking about using Papazian's bucket-in-bucket lauter tun for several months. I made good beer that way, but it was more work. The longer I've done this, the more I've moved to a system where I'm not lifting and moving around heavy, hot stuff. It makes the brew day soooo much more enjoyable.

Cool,

Thanks guys. I think I will just have to wait and pop the $30 for a cooler with a spigot that I can pop-out.

I think that can get me into AG pretty cheaply and easily.

-Paul

You can build a manifold that doesn't need a spigot. Rather than emptying into a spigot, just point your exit pipe up, and put a hose on it that goes out over the top of the cooler into your pot. Then you start a siphon when it's time to lauter. No worries about contamination, it's pre-boil.

Yeah, I think I aluded to that at the end of my first post.... so now I assume it works. I think I will do that. It will allow me to keep the whole mess in the cooler.

This is going to be cool.