Types of Coolers for mash tuns

[Pacman0810]

So I am thinking about putting together a mash tun for AG mashing. Was at Wal-Mart yesterday and they had all kinds of rectangular coolers on sale from Coleman, Igloo and the Marine Cooler. Great big sizes too.

Anybody have an experience putting together mash tuns from rectangular coolers? Or coolers in general?

[Full_moon]

Just built one up couple weeks ago. Got a rectangular one on sale at Big 5. Works great.

Mine does not have wheels. a good idea to get them I think. 2nd. I used the stainless braid from around a water hose for a drain filter. Not really that good, better to make a solid one form pvc pipe or copper. They filter, however they move and float around. They get cought up when stirring etc.

Check youtube out for the many builds they show

[bearriver]

Check homebrew forums and you'll see countless examples.

Heck, just run a Google image search for "mash cooler" and you'll see all there is to see.

[midlife-u-turn]

I went with a large rectangular cooler from Wal-Mart. Instead of going the standard drain system I went the brew in a bag route and am very happy with it. Do a search, a guy makes them custom sized to your cooler. Water in, all the grain goes in the bag, when you're done lift the bag out, no fuss no mess. Carry the grain out all in one shot. With this method you really could save some money and not even replace the factory plug/drain if you wanted.

[BaxtersDad]

I have constructed numerous cooler mash tuns for beer. In these systems the main requirement is to be able to draw off sweet wort from the bottom while sparging from the top. If your requirements are different, be guided accordingly.

For a rectangular mash tun a big rectangular cooler with a copper manifold works best. There are many examples of this on homebrew forums, but basically, there are four 1/2" pipes with slots cut about halfway down every inch or two running the length of the cooler that connect via tees to a header that has a tee outlet on the opposite side, the wort is fed out a copper tube that is pushed through a drilled stopper that is inserted intol the cooler drain hole (stock push button drain is of course removed). Note that when installed in the cooler, the slots face down, not up. Looks like this:



Works well enough, but in my experience, the best cooler mash tun is a round 7 gallon Gott with a Schmiddling EashyMasher (tm). It is simply a rolled stainless screen pinched closed at the far end and clamped to copper tubing on the outlet end. You can make it easily if you can find stainless mesh screen, but for $20, you probably should buy it from Jack. It looks like this:



I also have the Schmiddling MaltMill (tm). There may be better ones now, I have had it for over twenty years, and it still works great.

I actually put a drum tap in the Gott and connected the outlet of the EM to it with 3/8" hose. I brewed hundreds and hundreds of gallons of beer with my Gott / EM mash tun, a converted keg boiler and a homemade counterflow wort chiller. It was a hobby you could say ran amok...