Cheap & Easy 10 Gallon Rubbermaid MLT Conversion

BrianP said:

Does the same general parts list work for the rectangular coolers? Or do you need to change the valve size and/or some of the parts list? I'm not seeing the round coolers that much, just round 5's and rectangular 10's.

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Mostly, yes. I did need to get a larger nipple; a 2" would be about perfect if you can find it, but I just put mine together with a 2.5" (it's the closest they had) and used a few rubber grommits as spacers between washers. They make the whole assembly just slightly compressible, so if you wrench it in there good there's quite a bit of force holding it in place .

I can post a pic if you like.

Two of my brass parts don't seem to like each other, though; they are leaking at a rate of about 1 drop a minute (with a full cooler), but I wrenched them together so hard I can't get them apart . Can I just toss some epoxy on there and call it a day? I would have really like to just sweated the pipes together, but apparently plastic and blow torches don't agree .

Thanks for the info about the adjustments for the rectangular coolers.

I lucked out and found a 10g round one at HomeDepot on clearance for $40.

If you're looking for one, now is as good a time as any. Supplies are limited - I grabbed the last one at my store. They're on clearance so they'll be gone until next spring (at HD at least).

I have a couple (possibly noob) questions about this setup. How long does the wort take to drain? I would think that the stainless mesh would plug easily, so how do you prevent stuck sparges?

Thanks
-J

I've used a SS braid for many batches and have never had a stuck sparge. Someone made a good point that the SS braid actually has less chance of a stuck sparge as it promotes channeling, which is not a big issue for batch sparge anyway.

Drined 5 gallons in 10 lbs. grain in about 5 minutes yesterday. If it plugs, just take your hand and cup it around the drain tubing and blow. Did this once yesterday and worked like a charm. BTW....first AG yesterday with this setup and got 80%!!!


Wanted to give FlyGuy another shoutout. He helped me along the way immensely. From this thread, to PM's about my MLT to worried Brewsmith ?'s and PM's during my first AG.

Great Guy Award goes to him.

Well, it looks like I'm going to make the leap to all grain. I picked up a 5 gallon Rubbermaid cooler at Walmart for $16. I don't have any immediate plans for anything particularly high gravity so a 5 gallon MLT will work for me. If down the road I decide to upgrade to a 10 gallon cooler, I can always use this as a HLT.

I think I'm going to brew Dude's Boulevard Wheat recipe for my first all grain batch.

Now I just need to find a good deal on a turkey fryer with a large pot.

Can't wait to try my first all grain batch!

ok, i got pissed off at my cooler because it was leaking.. so i just caulked the hell out of the outside. Shouldnt effect anything thing, right.. i have 2 hours to dry, then i will try again.

aekdbbop said:

ok, i got pissed off at my cooler because it was leaking.. so i just caulked the hell out of the outside. Shouldnt effect anything thing, right.. i have 2 hours to dry, then i will try again.

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Which cooler did you end up using? It may depend on your setup, but often you have to get JUSSSTTTT the right amount of tightening to get the bulkhead sealed. Under-tighten or over-tighten, and they will leak.

The caulking should help, but the best thing to use would be food grade silicone. Also make sure that you sealed the whole bulkhead, otherwise you could get wort leaking into the cooler (i.e., seepage into the space between the inner and outer cooler walls).

i think it was an igloo.. it didnt really have any markings on it.. but thats what it looked like..thanks for the tip about the space between the cooler.. if i ruin it, it was free.. and i can just use the hardware for a new cooler..

Cool, I went to HD and bought two 5/8" rubber washers, and they worked great with my Igloo cooler. No leaks! Thanks to ohiobrewtus.

aekdbbop said:

Cool, I went to HD and bought two 5/8" rubber washers, and they worked great with my Igloo cooler. No leaks! Thanks to ohiobrewtus.

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Glad I could help and that the rubber washer worked for you! :rockin:

Roterdrache said:

I do have one concern. When you cut the SS braid are you cutting the braid material itself or the metal fitting on the end of the braid? I had always heard that cutting SS is bad, that where you cut can and will corrode.

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AFAIK, rust after machining/cutting SS results from metal from the cutting tool being embedded into the SS. Cutting with an abrasive disk should not present such problems. Even if you used a hacksaw (and it worked), the surface area of the cut wires is tiny and not likely to harbor much oxidable metal.

I finally got the 5/8" SS washer (from a local specialty fastener store) and built my 10 gal MLT.

My first attempt at assembly resulted in a very minor leak. Then I tried a 5/8" neoprene washer inside and outside per ohiobrewtus' suggestion. Perfection. :rockin:

I also knocked out an immersion chiller of 50' of 3/8" copper while waiting to see if the MLT would leak. My first AG brew day is coming soon!

Thanks again for the great post.

Has anybody using the slotted hose inside the steel braid run into stuck sparges? I cut so many V's into the hose I was worried about its structural integrity. when I spargedd the frist time I thought it was slow because of the pound of oats. The slow sparge eventaully trickled to a stop. The next batch was the exact same minus the oats. Same thing. The 3rd batch I got the same thing but I ended up dumping the mash into my kettle and removing the internal hose. I reconnected the braid, dumped the mash back in, let it settle, and vourlaufed perfectly. I couldn't wait to throw that vinyl away.
Sorry for the vent.

When i tried cutting slots with my SHARP chef knife, i thought i was going to lose a digit. I ended up skipping that. Instead I cut off two 1" sections, inserted them over the barbs, but the braid over, and clinched w/ nylon ties. The vinyl gives it something to grip, but I left the braid empty.

By the way, I replaced the cap on the free end with another barbed connection and a threaded cap. The added weight helps keep if from floating.

I am a newbie at all this brewing stuff so please forgive my ignorance but what is it and what is it used for? I have a 10 gallon cooler in my garage that I tried to donate to local peewee football teams but no one wanted it, its like new. Anyway, after seeing it used in this thread, I thought I may finally have a use for it if I could find out what it is?

trainfever said:

I am a newbie at all this brewing stuff so please forgive my ignorance but what is it and what is it used for? I have a 10 gallon cooler in my garage that I tried to donate to local peewee football teams but no one wanted it, its like new. Anyway, after seeing it used in this thread, I thought I may finally have a use for it if I could find out what it is?

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It's a mash/lauter tun.

www.howtobrew.com
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q...GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Used to turn the starch in the grain into sugar and then rinse it from the grain. Producing sweet wort

Ok, thanks. Now whats a mash/lauter tun?

Instead of extract, you make your own. Buy crushed whole grains and soak them at a precise temp to make your own wort. Like the big boys.

Look up "all grain brewing". There is a wealth of info.

It seems like I may have done that with my first batch. It is a Belgian White Ale. I first had to steep some gound oats for an hour and then add the LME and the DME into the mixture. This was all done in my brewpot though and I still havent figured out where the cooler comes in but Ill keep looking.

With a mash/lauter tun you extract the sugars from grain to collect a sweet liquid that would be equivalent to your LME/DME. Why would one do that...control, over a period of time cheaper, tastes better IMO.

Let me break it down a little for you

Extract Brewing:

Liquid or Dry malt extract boiled for an hour with hops thrown in at time intervals for bitterness/flavor/aroma


Extract with specialty grains brewing:

Same as above with steeping of some specialty grains at 160 degrees before the boil starts

(see here for which grains can be steeped as opposed to mashed to work)

All Grain brewing:

Get grains such as this and hold them in a cooler with 154 degree water for an hour. Drain the water. Add some 168 degree water to rinse the grains. Drain the cooler. Do this until you have 6.5 gallons drained. Then boil as usual in your pot.

That is a down and dirty extract vs. AG profile. Basically, you are making your own malt extract--sort of--.
Some grains have to be mashed (held at 154 for an hour) to convert to sugars. Some only need to be steeped. Dextrin, for example, will add body and mouthfeel if steeped at a rate of about 25%. If mashed it will convert 100% of the sugars.

Kind of make sense?

I went to Home Depot this evening looking for the 10-gallon cooler both Home Depot locations in my city informed me that the 10-gallon has been removed from Home Depot inventory but "gladly" would direct me to the 5-gallon tanks.

So I went over to Lowe's (picked up a set of Torx drivers too... damn Motorola phones...) to grab one as well - surprise - they don't stock 10-gallons anymore.

It seems I'm going to go immediate gratification and use a rectangular cooler from Wally World.

yup. finding a 10 gal. round cooler is tough. I had to special order one from my local Ace hardware. Only took 2 days to get it in. Also was pricey, $46.

I scored yesterday, one of the Home Depots in Annapolis had 3 of the 10 gallon Igloos on clearance for $40.....end of season apparently. I picked one up, and cost me $67 out the door or $77, now I can't remember. They didn't have 5/8" SS fender washers, but I found some in a SS bolt kit, and that was like $4 instead of $0.38 per washer. I did also buy a 16" SS hose instead of a 12". Come to think of it...it was $77 but I did buy some other things as well.


EDIT: Original thought was I did this conversion and it was easy. Only area where I had issues was making everything tight....and I did use two 5/8" O-Rings...there was room for two, so I used two to make a better seal.

And funny story, I built this at my buddy's house (we built him a sweet garage) and when I took my MLT home, itt got strapped into the front seat. he he

98EXL said:

one of the Home Depots in Annapolis had 3 of the 10 gallon Igloos on clearance for $40.....end of season apparently.

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If what the guys at both Home Depots in Frederick said was true, they're not on clearance for end of season, they're on clearance because they don't sell well enough to keep them stocked but they sell well enough to drop them on the floor and sell of what they've got. They were both sure that once Home Depot sold the 10-gallons they had, they'd not be restocking.

uuurang said:

I had to special order one from my local Ace hardware.

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I forgot about Ace Hardware. There's not one in my city and I've not seen any around this area - I figured Ace was regional and not here. Fortunately there's one about 30 miles north of here and they DID have one of the 10 gallons in stock. I paid $46 for it but oh well. Thanks for the tip!

well let's see your new toy!

I've got it built.

I couldn't find stainless steel washers in 5/8" and I couldn't find brass in that size.

What I ended up doing was buying about 10 or 12 neoprene washers and cramming them in there to get it tight. It sealed well but can be twisted, oh well.

I am a bit backed up right now in terms of logging my brew activity but I plan on doing it this week, when I finish I'll post links and pictures to show off my new toy.

There's a crappy picture of it.

Note to all that follow:

Do not get a skimpy plastic braid. It doesn't work. It will be a nightmare.

I've found that computer cable ties work VERY well for this project.

Also, can a mod please add this thread to the "Project Locator" sticky?

Without looking I grabbed the toilet lines with the plastic braid. Being in a rush, I ended up using them anyhow. I removed teh inside tube which was pvc braided vinyl, and I cut 'V' notches in it with a pair of wire cutters down the entire length to make a sudo manifold. Then I slipped the plastic braid back over the tube and attached it with wire ties to my valve. Worked like a champ even up to 170*.

So I'm not sure what the problem is with the plastic braid... it worked great for me. Super simple to work with, kept the grain from the kettle, didn't get stuck and didn't melt.

-J

Hey miatawnt2b -- I think the reason the plastic braid might have worked for you was because you notched the inner hose and reinserted it back in the braid. This really increases the strength of the braid so it can't get crushed, which is the big problem people have when they use braids.

I think using the inner tube for reinforcing the braid, SS or otherwise, is a really good idea. The problems that people seem to have with the braid is that it either gets crushed/misshapen or it floats up. Reinforcing it this way is easy and solves both of these problems.

You might get some criticism that plastics aren't meant to get hot because they could release nasty chemicals at higher temperatures. I would suspect that mash temps aren't hot enough, but I can't say for sure.

Regardless, glad to see it worked for you!

Yep, I agree. I was planning on re-using the inner tube anyhow even with stainless for that very reason. I did have a bit of an issue with the braid floating while mixing the mash, though while the mash was stirred and liquified i would push the braid to the bottom with the paddle. Simple enough solution until I can figure how to weight the braid enough to hold it down.

I had several problems with my polymer braid (toilet supply line). The first one was: it floated.

The second was that the plastic got especially soft when I added in hot water. These things combined caused the braid to float off and become detached.

The second time around I added the nipple/lock part and a heavier (metal) braid and used a tie to hold the things together. That worked well.

I think even a stainless steel braid would collpase if it didn't have the internal hose supporting it.

does it have a plastic taste?

hopsalot said:

does it have a plastic taste?

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The Rubbermaid round beverage coolers are meant for beverages and do not have a plastic taste.

I feel after using mine 4 times or so it may need some sort of improved braid/filter something. I'm going to try to improve on this on the cheap side

Inserting anything inside the braid that effectively covers a large percentage of the open area is counterproductive. I've seen people make copper coils from electrical wire and use that but I just find it to be unnessesary. I've used the stainless braid in my cooler for a good 12 batches and it's never deformed or collapsed. One time I got a little crazy with stirring and continually snagged it and it's stretched out a little, but never to the point where it was ruined.

Bobby_M said:

I've seen people make copper coils from electrical wire and use that but I just find it to be unnessesary. I've used the stainless braid in my cooler for a good 12 batches and it's never deformed or collapsed.

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I used the Dremel to take some big chunks out of the tube and cut holes in it. The first and foremost reason I have the plastic tubing in there is to keep it securely fastened to the inner nipple on the ball valve, the cable tie on the SS braid itself won't hold securely enough.

Even though I've got the tubing in it, it still lauters very well. I'm sure the ball value is the bottle neck rather than the tubing.

I made this a week ago, as I know many others have, and I just wanted to say that these directions were spot on and super easy to do. I spent at most 35 minutes at Lowes gathering all the pieces and one I got everything home it took less than 45 minutes for me to figure out how to put everything together. Thanks for the help FlyGuy

it's the only reason (ok not really) that I went to AG