Does any one use their mash tun as a bottling bucket too?

I have a bottling bucket but I also made a mash tun out of a 10 gallon igloo cooler. I use a false bottom and the metal braid (if anything gets through the false bottom, the braid will filter it) in my MT plus the spigot is lower so I think I'd be able to get more of the beer out of it.

So, what is the harm in using the MT instead of bottling bucket? I don't see any threads on this so I'm wondering why people don't do this.

Is there a big reason people don't that I'm missing? Just curious.

It could work, as long as you are careful enough about your sanitation. Most brewers don't worry about mash tun sanitation at all, as everything that touches it is pre-boil.

The false bottom/braid should probably be removed for bottling, and the spigot assembly completely disassembled/cleaned after mashing and disassembled/sanitized before bottling.

I don't do it because I'm strictly kegging at this point.

I would not use a MT as a bottling bucket. The grain is not sanitary and the MT gets "contaminated" every batch. While one could sanitize the MT and use it, it is not the best option. In a brewery, the "hot" side is seperate from the "cold" side, and equipment should not be shared between the two.

Using the same equipment pre-boil, and post fermentation is not recommended.

A FB and braid will do nothing to filter fermented beer, the yeast and protein particles in fermented beer are extremely fine, many times smaller than a FB or braid.

My MT has so many scratches inside caused by me being completely careless, that I would not use it. I would be very concerned about infections. My bottling bucket setup works and it was cheaper.

Thanks guys! I'll just use the bottling bucket.

Thanks!

Thanks for the info. I had the same question. I completely agree. Every time I've adjusted or cleaned by mash ton spigot or filter, I find a piece of grist and drops of wort. I can clean it and get old junk out and then clean it again and old junk pops up again as if I hadn't already cleaned it.

if you are the OCD type and disassemble and sanitize everything including the MT, you could do it.. your not going to get scratches deep enough in the stainless to harbor anything that a starsan soaking wont kill.. we tend to WAAY overreact to this stuff here. I personally wouldnt do it for a number of reasons.. a plastic bottling valve is more sanitary /easier to keep clean with a starsan rinse.. Ive never once disassembled mine to clean it or the weldless fitting and never got an infection from it. I do leave a couple gallons of starsan in the bucket along with my wand and hoses and such prior to use.

I use my boil kettle. I sanitize all the nooks and crannies by boiling a quart of water for 20 minutes with the lid on. I dump the boiling water out the ball valve at the bottom, let it cool, then add my priming sugar water to the bottom, blast it with CO2 for good measure, then transfer from my fermenter through the ball valve. No infections; minimal oxidation; all stainless setup.

I use my HLT. Since it’s 5 gallons I mix up a fresh batch of starsan and let it sit a few minutes, then hook my bottling wand and hose to the spigot and fill each of my bottles with it. Once the HLT is sanitized and empty of starsan solution I spray down the inside of the lid with starsan. Then I add my priming sugar water to the HLT and rack the beer from my carboy onto it. Then the sanitized lid goes on. I then empty each beer bottle of starsan into a cooler and either dump it or use it to prep my equipment for the next batch if it is within a few days.

From the HLT I take my freshly sanitized bottling wand and fill the sanitized 48 or so beers before it kicks. It’s not a perfect method and a scratch or carelessness might lead to infection someday. So far so good after 60 gallons of bottled beer [emoji482]