Diy mash tun question

[Thedude907]

Should i build my mash tun from an igloo ice cooler or regular cooler?

My friend and I were talking about it. He want to build his with a cooler because the larger surface are for the sparge water to go through the grains.
Me being new figures igloo cooler because thay what I see most people using.

I just want to have some feed back prior ahead of time.

 

[kh54s10]

I don't think it matters. Try to get one with good insulation. I use a 10 gallon Rubbermaid drink cooler from Home Depot.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I prefer a rectangular cooler for two reasons:

1) More volume for beers with big grain bills
2) Lower profile so I can run 3 tier without creating a skyscraper for my HLT

That being said, I run a bazooka screen and do batch sparges. If you want to fly sparge, creating a suitable filtering mechanism for a rectangular cooler is more difficult than getting a nice false bottom for a round cooler.

Having two 10-12 gallon round coolers makes a nice looking rig vs my haphazard looking setup, but I don't care much how things look.

Also, I think NB's round cooler AG setup might be bigger than 10 gallons. It might be worth checking out. It is a bit pricey vs what you can DIY with a rectangle cooler.

For reference, I just have a high temp host inserted through the existing drain plug on mine. The OD of the hose matches the ID of the drain, so it makes a nice water tight seal. Inside I have a bazooka screen, outside I have a cheap brass ball valve with barbs on each side. The whole thing can be built for about $60 (cooler $30, hose/valve $15, Bazooka screen $10, internal SS barb to 1/2" couple $5). That's about the cost for the cooler alone with the round ones and mine is a 12.5 gallon cooler.

 

[Thedude907]

Thanks for the feedback. That's the info I was looking for. The round coolers are quite pricey. And I could do more with an ice chest. I would hate to have a larger grain bill and not enough volume in a round. I'm still like i said a ways out from needing one. I'm pretty new to brewing. So far I'm not really a fan of exctract brewing. There is an exctracty taste I notice in both my beers and ones from a buddy who has been brewing for a while. He keeps telling me to stick with exctract, but I feel it's time to spread the wings and fly. So I'm planning on doing a few biab beers and get a hlt and mash tun and go that route for all grain.

If you guys have any advice in lessons learned and or well any advice really would be nice. Thanks for the feedback on the mash tun.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Thanks for the feedback. That's the info I was looking for. The round coolers are quite pricey. And I could do more with an ice chest. I would hate to have a larger grain bill and not enough volume in a round. I'm still like i said a ways out from needing one. I'm pretty new to brewing. So far I'm not really a fan of exctract brewing. There is an exctracty taste I notice in both my beers and ones from a buddy who has been brewing for a while. He keeps telling me to stick with exctract, but I feel it's time to spread the wings and fly. So I'm planning on doing a few biab beers and get a hlt and mash tun and go that route for all grain.

If you guys have any advice in lessons learned and or well any advice really would be nice. Thanks for the feedback on the mash tun.

I've never done it, but if you're on a budget, BIAB brews are just as tasty as the standard approach. You will need a much bigger kettle though. I wouldn't think of BIAB as second rate.

There's a sticky in the DIY section on how to build a cooler mash tun if you end up going that route.

 

[Thedude907]

I've looked at various diy mash tuns. I was more or less looking at the question of "is an ice chest better because more are to sparge the grain vs and igloo round water cooler?" It seems they both work really well.

My next batch I want to do biab due to it being cheaper equiptment wise. I'm fixing to buy a freezer for my kegs. Then I'll so the diy mash tun. Was hoping for more info but it seems either choice is good.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I've looked at various diy mash tuns. I was more or less looking at the question of "is an ice chest better because more are to sparge the grain vs and igloo round water cooler?" It seems they both work really well.

My next batch I want to do biab due to it being cheaper equiptment wise. I'm fixing to buy a freezer for my kegs. Then I'll so the diy mash tun. Was hoping for more info but it seems either choice is good.

It's a little tricky to make a manifold for the chest style MLTs which can effect fly sparging. It's a simple worry free build for batch sparging though.

 

[BigCrazyAl]

I just built a rectangular chest cooler into a mash tun. I may be in it total for $50 so even if I need to change something it's not a big deal.

Edit: my thoughts were that it's good to have more room for big beers down the road even if the efficiency may be slightly lower than a round cooler for small beers.