Converting a cooler to mash tun

[thatguy314]

I used this cooler the other day with 22 lbs of grain it it with room to spare. I've also done 8 lbs with no problems. Because it's square, the grain doesn't spread out to much and making small beers is no problem. Plus the insulation is great. 2F is the most temp drop I've gotten over as much as 2 hours!

ZZ have you ever tried to pack it full? that should be about 17.5 gallons.... how much grain do you think you can fit in it? I'm building a 10 gallon system and tryign to see if I can find a cooler big enough for it.

[foomench]

This is the 48 qt. version of the Ice Cube with 26.5# of grain. I figure I can go to 28. I have a false bottom in there. The original Ice Cube was 40 quarts, the Deluxe was 48, and now there is the 70 qt MaxCold Roller. I think there was a marine version a while back somewhere in between.

[thatguy314]

This is the 48 qt. version of the Ice Cube with 26.5# of grain. I figure I can go to 28. I have a false bottom in there. The original Ice Cube was 40 quarts, the Deluxe was 48, and now there is the 70 qt MaxCold Roller. I think there was a marine version a while back somewhere in between.

Awesome. So if it scales, I should be able to fit about 40# of grain in there. Enough to do a barleywine in a 10G batch. I also like that it's more vertical than a typical cooler. Did you just put in a round false bottom, or did you make your own?

*UPDATE: I just shuddered when I realized that it's nearly an entire sack of grain to make a 10G barleywine.... shudder....

[AdamWiz]

So yesterday I went all around town on my cooler hunt. Most of the square or rectangular coolers I found were either too small, waay too big and expensive, or did not have a drain. But on my last stop at a hardware store(Menard's) my decision was made for me. They had the 5 gallon rubbermaid beverage coolers on sale for 16 bucks (the next lowest price I have seen on these things is almost twice that!). They did not have the 10 gallon type though. I am going back today to buy the 5 gallon. If I ever end up needing a larger mash tun, I guess I can still use this one as a HLT. But I don't tend to brew especially big beers, and if I want to make a bigger one I'm OK with supplementing with some extract for the time being. This project has me REALLY exited, as I didn't think I'd be able to go AG until much later. My next project is moving out of the kitchen and doing full boil 5 gallon batches ( I only have been able to do this for my 3 gallon batches so far). It seems that all AG brewers do full boils-is this more important with AG than extract, or does it just happen that by the time most brewers progress to AG that they are already doing full boils?

Thanks to all who have chimed in, I will update on my progress in this venture
-Adam

[thatguy314]

My next project is moving out of the kitchen and doing full boil 5 gallon batches ( I only have been able to do this for my 3 gallon batches so far). It seems that all AG brewers do full boils-is this more important with AG than extract, or does it just happen that by the time most brewers progress to AG that they are already doing full boils

You pretty much have to do a full boil to get good all grain efficiency. I brew 6 gallon batches and I collect about 5-7 gallons of wort during sparging, depending on gravity, for my beers. If I ran off slower I could probably collect less, but it wouldmake it very wastful and expensive. If I only ran off th first 3 gallons my efficiency would probably be down around 40-50%, and I normally operate at 75%. Again with og this can vary. Its probably ok for an ord bitter, but would kill you with a barleywine.

[AdamWiz]

You pretty much have to do a full boil to get good all grain efficiency.

Ah yes, once you said this I realized that it should have probably been a no-brainer: obviously if you aren't able to boil all of your wort runoff, you would be losing gravity points and efficiency . I guess I'll have to do some testing and calculations to figure the max. amount of grain I'll be able to use and still be able to boil all of the runoff I get. I can only boil about 3.5 gallons at a time ( I may be able to do 4, but that would be cutting it pretty close for boilovers). I know this is a bit of a complex question, but does anyone have an idea of how much grain I could use and still limit the total runoff to about 3.5 gallons? ( mashing in about 1.25 quarts/lb., batch sparging ). Based on my research about sparging and runoff volumes, I am thinking I could do 6-8 pounds pretty easily.

-Adam

***I discovered bargainfittings.com and all I can say is WOW. I was able to get a full stainless valve setup for not much more than most places charge for brass. I had planned on going the cheaper route-but at those prices why not go stainless? I will never buy another fitting from anyone else if I can help it.

[AdamWiz]

and anyone wondering why I don't just buy a burner and go full boil right now - I am supposed to be saving money for my wedding in a few months, and if I buy any more brewing stuff right now ( that I can't hide ) my lady is going to kill me. Now I just need to make sure that I am the one who gets the mail on the day my package arrives-she'll never know

[foomench]

Did you just put in a round false bottom, or did you make your own?

I made my own:


$5 piece of scrap perforated stainless plasma cut to fit. I made a cardboard template first. As I recall, a round one wasn't going to be easy to fit because there is a channel on the bottom that goes to the drain plug. If you had a round one, you would need to block that channel somehow.