vacuum break for mini-mash tun?

[ThinkinDavid]

I just built a pretty sweet mini-mash tun with a 2 gallon water cooler and I'm looking to fill it up pretty good, but I'm worried about a "stuck sparge." It seems pretty deep for the 7+ pounds I'm looking to throw in it. I've read about a vacuum break but I'm having a hard time picturing what it would look like and how it would work on my mash tun. Any suggestions for mashing with a mini setup?

 

[david_42]

Seven pounds is impossible in an 8 quart cooler. Most people who use 5 gallon coolers max out at 13 pounds. I seriously recommend limiting your recipes to 5 pounds or less.

 

[ThinkinDavid]

It's too late now. We'll see what happens. I have 7.65 lbs to put in my 8 qt cooler. It doesn't sound completely crazy I don't think, though I've never done a mash before. I read taht 4 lbs. would fit in 4 qt. thus I figured it should work even if it's pushing it.

 

[carl_g]

yeah 4 lbs is about perfect for a 2 gallon cooler any more then that you run out of room.

 

[Revvy]

4 pounds is the standard amount in a 2 gallon cooler, including the 1.25/pound mash water.

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't think you're understanding the physics here. 10lbs of crap can't fit into a 5 pound bag.

7.6 pounds of grain + 1qt/lb of strike water (that's 1.9 gallons) takes up 2.62 gallons of space. So, even though we're telling you it won't work, go ahead and see what happens. At most you'll cram 5 quarts of water in there but you'll get horrible conversion due to being so thick not to mention missing your target temp.

 

[ThinkinDavid]

Ah, all you smartasses were right. I ended up putting 6.6 pounds of grain in my tun (which was still too much) and doing the last pound on the stove. 4 lbs would be good but I wouldn't have a problem doing up to 5.

Bobby_M was right that I would have poor conversion, though not that poor, I was a full point short of my target gravity. Although I must say, Bobby, stuffing 10 lbs of crap into a 5 pound bag has nothing to do with physics. Thats just common sense, and I got my degree in philosophy so I know all about common sense. Where I got my original idea for the mini-mash tun (Randy Mosher) said 4 lbs could fit into a 1 gallon cooler which made me belive I could fit double that into 2 gallons. It was my first partial-grain mash and I learned a lot from it.

As for my original question about the vacuum break, the drainning spigot acted as a fine vacuum break.

 

[Revvy]

1) Noe of us were being smartasses, we were just speaking from experience with working with 2 gallon coolers. I looked back at our responses and none of them were even close to being the level of smartass we get around here.

2)More than likely that was a misprint on Randy Mosher's part and never got caught on editing. For one thing, although it appears that there is one brand of 1 gallon cooler online, the smallest size most stores carry are 2 gallon, followed by 5 and 10 gallon varieties.

3)As someone who was one of the first people on this site to use and advocate the use of two gallon coolers I have found that "stuck sparges" are really not an issue in the un modified coolers. What happens is that many users of the cooler line it with a large grain bag, and the grainbag often folds over the area where the spigot out-port is, and sort of blocks the wort from draining out.

It's really more of a blocked spigot, than a true stuck sparge.

That's why I advocate on here creating sort of a riser/false bottom, by using a small folding steamer in the bottom of the cooler, then placing the grain bag in. This will lift the level of the grain above the port of the spigot, and everything will drain through. This also has the added benefit of filtering out larger pieces of grainhusk which will result in clearer runoffs.

One of these.

(unscrew or break off the center post)

Using the strainer lifts the grainbag above the level of the spigot and prevent blocked spigots, and helps filter the grain from the wort. Clear runnoff during vourloffing;

A piece of hose with a small slit can be wedged to drain the cooler to help flow better into the pot.

See, more than likely those of us who were answering have actually used the 2 gallon cooler and know how much grain can fit in there. We weren't blowing smoke...if you had looked around you might have found that answer in the dozen or so threads about the cooler on here.

Like this one...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/two-gallon-cooler-125050/#post1395238

Like I said, I'm pretty sure Randy meant a 2 gallon cooler and never caught it during re-write/editing...and unless his editor was a brewer (most likely not) he wouldn't have bothered double checking or even realizing a need to correct that mistake.

 

[ThinkinDavid]

Revvy, thanks for the great reply. And I'm sorry to everyone for calling you smartasses, except for Bobby M. I love the illustrated post. I used the vegitable strainer without a grain bag and a lint trap over the drain tube inside the tun, and I got a very clear run. Really it just seems that I packed too much grain in my cooler, like Bobby was saying, and I could probably get a much more controlled temp and reaction from the grain if they had room to move around. But it was my first mash attempt and I knew I was probably overfilling it. If you look at the original post you'll see that my initial question had nothing to do with the grains and volume of my cooler. I did learn a lot from this experience, and these posts have been helpful, but most of it came when I was making a very sloppy mess in my basement while I was trying to mash 10 lbs of crap in a 5 lb bag.