Coffee Urn Mash/Lauter Tun

[svudah]

The dust has cleared on my first all-grain experiment and it was all thanks to a 2.5 gallon coffee urn I picked up at Goodwill for $4.50.

Does anyone else use anything like this or even heard of it? I did a couple of google searches and the only thing I could find was a guy who makes bio diesel with a coffee urn. I just removed the long, internal stem, put a 1.5 inch steel ring around the heating element, and placed the filter bucket on top of that. I let it heat the water up to 168F, unplugged the machine, and doughed in the grain. After 60 minutes, the mash temp was still 151F. The filter bucket was a perfect false bottom and I sparged everything beautifully from the urns spigot. I hit my 1.050 target exactly.

Obviously, this is not big enough for your average brewer--this batch was only 2 gallons. But, for less than $5 I can now do small batches of all-grain brews and partial mashes of some bigger stuff.

Cheers

 

[ZacMac]

This sounds pretty sweet. Can you explain the 1.5" steel ring around the heating element?

 

[McKBrew]

There was a thread awhile back about using one for an HLT, but using one for a Mash Tun hasn't been discussed as far as I know. Excellent idea, sounds like it works.

 

[svudah]

I actually used a part of a steel doorknob I found in the apartment I'm living in. It is just a 1.5 inch thick ring that fit perfectly over the heating element hole which is 1 inch in diameter. By resting the filter bucket on top of that, I have space for the hot liquor to drain out of the spigot while allowing the hot water to flow through while I'm heating it up.

 

[Donasay]

You could always get one of those 100 cup coffee urns that would hold more than 5 gallons of liquid and let you mash larger batches....

 

[eschatz]

I would be curious about the metals you are working with and their leaching abilities. biodiesel and beer are not hte same although they are both fuels.... !

 

[Chesterbelloc]

8 years later they are selling them.