A couple of mash tun questions

[JonClayton]

I guess it is official, I am hooked on brewing. I graduated to stovetop partial mash last month (thanks Deathbrewer) and now I am considering trying out the all grain methods.

I see the plans on this site and others for converting a 5 gallon water cooler to a mash tun, it looks simple enough but I have a couple questions.

The first one, and it is probably obvious but i just want to make sure I understand... What is the purpose of the braided hose inside the tun? I think it's to help the water drain out, but I am not seeing how that helps more than just opening the valve on the front. Please educate me

Secondly, am I thinking correctly that once I heat my water to mash temp and put it in the tun with the lid on, the temp should hold pretty stable? Do you guys find that you have to keep topping off with hot water to hold the temp?


Lastly, I had hte idea of drilling a hole though the lid and finding a way to insert a mash paddle with a rubber grommet around the handle at the hole. This would let me stir the mash without opening the lid. Is this a good idea?

 

[bullinachinashop]

The braided hose is used to filter the grains. Were you thinking of bagging the tun?

There are so many tun designs in the DIY area that you can research and figure out which one you prefer.

Most people add the strike water to the tun at a temperature a little above their calculated strike temp and let it come down to the desired temp and then add the grist. This way you don't have to figure the amount of heat loss your tun has.

The temp should hold pretty stable from then on as long as you don't mess with it to much. In the winter you can wrap a blanket around the tun.

I think the hole in the lid will work, but I usually just stir well initially and then just leave it alone.

Good luck,

Bull

 

[likwidbliss]

I left grains in my tun for a night and in the morning they were still very warm. Opening the lid to stir your mash won't affect the temperature too much.

I have done about 10 AG batches so far each is better than the next. My first batch the efficiency was about 57% and has gone up from there. I think my problem was how fast I sparged.

I used plans from the internet to make my tun. There are so many different designs, I don't know if one works better than another one.

Have fun.

My tun is a Coleman 48 qt. extra insulated cooler. I just used braided hose instead of all that copper. It works great. I need to mak some small modifications but that is another day.

 

[Rover]

Can you do full boils now?
If so, since you are used to doing Deathbrewers PM method you should take a look at his https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing-pics-90132/ and use it as a guideline for a BIAB with the cooler as your mash tun.

I just did it and got 80% so with 10 lbs of Vienna, I hit 1.057 I have a post explaining what I did here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/biab-why-do-i-need-do-more-191649/

The nice thing is you don't have to modify anything to go AG.

Good luck with what ever you decide to do

 

[sweet_corn]

I used a cheapie 48 qt cooler from walmart. double the size as the five gallon, same price. Braid is to filter. Basically buy the stainless braid (some are not stainless) and remove the inner hose.

I brew in Wisconsin in the middle of winter below zero. I have not had any issues with temperature. Maybe 5 degrees of loss over an hour tops. Lifting the lid to stir the mash is no big deal.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

For your braid, I suggest the hot water heater supply line rather than the regular size. I have had ZERO stuck sparges after switching and was having a terrible time before.

 

[Brenton]

Here's a link to a video that I found was very useful when I was making my cooler/esky mash tun (this link also has a good video for making an immersion chiller too).

Depending on the size of your mash tun and brew batch, I found that by cutting a piece of foam camping sleeping mat and wedging it inside the mash tun just above the grain mix stopped most of the heat loss associated with heating the air between the grain bed and lid of the mash tun.

 

[JonClayton]

Rover, that is exactly what I was thinking. I have a kettle large enough to do an full boil so i was thinking,and tell me if I am correct here, I could heat the mash water in the kettle on my outdoor burner and then add it to the mash turn with the bagged grain. I will leave that alone to mash and about halfway through heat up my sparge water in the same kettle that I earlier heated my mash water in. I will get it to sparge temp, lift the grain bag out of the cooler and dunk-sparge-soak using death brewers method. I can then drain the contents of the cooler into the kettle and proceed with my full boil.

If I am bagging the grain, should i even be concerned changing out the plastic faucet?

BTW.. for anyone thinking about this I noticed my local lowes has 5 gallon igloo water coolers painted blue with the lowes logo for $22 - this is the cheapest I've seen one.

 

[Rover]

Hey JonC,
That is exactly how i do it. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "add it to the mash turn with the bagged grain" but if you mean to say add the water to the mash tun, then stir in your grain than yes that is how I do it.

Make sure to overheat your strike water to preheat your mash tun and pay attention to how much temp you will loose when you add your grain to hit your temps. I use Beersmith to calculate the temps of the strike and sparge water.

I brewed a PM batch of porter today and got incredible efficiency. From 7.5lbs of grain I got 1.040, that's just under 93%! I only had to add 2.75lbs of DME to get 1.060. I just hope that the little bit of squeezing of the grain is not doing any harm. That efficiency could also be because I was 2 degrees lower than I was aiming for. I ended up mashing at 153F

The plastic spigot should not cause any problems. Mine still works fine when i use it for cold water for my work.

Let us know how it goes

 

[JonClayton]

Thanks Rover, I must have been confused - it happens Let me pick the brain again, and I apologize if I am making this harder than it should be.

I wanted to use use deathbrewers method of sparging, which requires the grain to be in a bag that you dunk in the sparge water and then let soak for a few mins. How would I sparge in the kettle without having the grain in a bag? I was thinking that if I just added the grain to the cooler without a bag that I would have to fly or batch sparge in the cooler to keep from ending up with loose grain in my wort.

Thanks for all your input, I am getting excited about trying this out. I brewed my second PM kit Sunday night using DB's stovetop method - except I did it out doors on my gas burner. I did not calculate efficiency but I hit the OG that the recipe specified so I guess it went ok. If I can get this cooler thing going that will be even better. If not, I need to pick up a second large pot for sparging as i want to retire the one I am using now - I think it's been adding an off flavor to some of my darker brews.

As always, any inputs welcome as I am trying my best to soak it all in.

 

[JonClayton]

Rover - I just realized why I wasnt clear when I mentioned putting the bag of grains in the cooler. I have been doing a slightly modified DB method, my xl grain bag is not wide enough to stretch open and clip to the sides of my brew pot, so I have been bagging the grain and loosely knotting it when i mash. During the mash i move the bag around to "stir" the grain. I am betting that you are talking about leaving the bag open and secured to the cooler just like DB attaches to the brewpot with binder clips right?

 

[Rover]

You got it. Man, I bought a paint strainer from Lowes that really stretches large. It has no problem fitting around both my cooler and my boiling pot and it reaches to the bottom of both. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as the grain gets good and mixed.

 

[JonClayton]

Good call Rover, I am off to lowes after work! I thought the XL bag I bought would work, its huge but its long instead of wide. I'll check out the pain strainer bags.

Thanks again

 

[Rover]

Yeah Check it out. They have two different sizes, I got the bigger one.