What Size Cooler

[Jeff]

I am looking to get a chest cooler and convert it to mash/lauter tun. But I don't really know what size and type would be best. I know I read somewhere that you should make sure the cooler can withstand high temps, but after looking on the coleman.com website, I did not see any info on hot temps.

Coleman has a line of coolers called "Extreme" that are supposed to keep items cold for two days. Does anybody know anything about these? If they can remain cold for a long time then they should remain hot and at an even temp as well.

Thanks for any info, it will be greatly appreciated!

[brewmonkey]

you should be good with any Coleman or Igloo type cooler. They all can handle the mash temps. I would just make sure you don't apply direct heat! :D

Big thing is the size.Your tun should be able to hold your grain bill and allow room for sparging. One that will allow for you to maintain a decent mash depth without being to shallow or to deep, as this will be essential for efficiency.

Think of it like this, a kettle should be tall and narrow a mash tun should be short and wide.

Are you doing 5 gal batches or bigger?

[Brownbeard]

I am using a 30 qt right now, because it was one I already had. It shoudl do me fine for most 5 gal batches. I will want to step up someday to do high gravity brews.

[Jeff]

I am doing five gallon batches and have no plans to get any bigger. I can't keep up on drinking what I have the way it is. :eek:

[brewmonkey]

I would shoot for something between 28-40 qts. Should allow for enough grain in a 5 usg batch and still not cost a buttload of money. Here is a site listing 40qt's for $20 (not sure about shipping though).

http://lowprice4u.com/shoppingcart/ProductTemplate.ASP?ProductTemplateID=2456

[bierboy]

I have a cheapo 48 quart Rubbermaid from Wal-Mart. It cost less than $13 and has had no problems for a year.

[toneyc]

OK, I gotta tell y'all about this.

I bought the 48 qt "Ice Cube" from Wal-Mart yesterday for $12.74 plus tax. I thought I had a couple of stainless jacketed water supply lines laying around, but I didn't, had to go to Home De$pot this morning. *All* of the water supply lines they had were this new "Advanced Polymer Braid" crap. It took me 20 minutes of scraping around to find on the bottom shelf, back behind some pvc stuff, a 4 foot "washer line" for $10.95. OK, so I got home, and cobbled together some parts, and made a mash tun.

www.prismnet.com/~toneyc/images/cork-assy.jpg
www.prismnet.com/~toneyc/images/crimp.jpg
www.prismnet.com/~toneyc/images/cooler-out.jpg

I also followed the batch sparging directions in the Jan-Feb 2004 BYO, and Man-O-Man, life is good. I kept my temps, I hit my gravity, life is good. And batch sparging took half the time, hallelujah! I am a happy boy.

:)
Toney

[Brownbeard]

WOO HOO!!! That's awesome! I will get some pics of mine up. Mine is only 30qt, but I have not come up with a 5gal recipe that I couldn't do yet. I am sure there are some big brews that might push it. What did you brew? I'm doing a cherry wheat.

[Jeff]

After doing some reading of Palmer this weekend he says that grain bed depth is very important for brewing with a manifold system. If I remember correctly he ran a calculation for a typical 5 gal batch and came up with a 24 qt cooler as the perfect size with a manifold.

At this point I haven't found a 24 qt cooler with a spigot on the side. Is grain bed depth as important as Palmer makes it sound? Right now I am leaning torward a 48 qt that has the spigot.

Brownbeard with your cherry wheat are you shooting for somethign similar to Sam Adams? If you are and it turns out good you will have to post the recipe. That beer grows on me more everytime I drink it.

[toneyc]

That was sorta the thing for me, I was paranoid that I wouldn't have enough room in the plastic fermentor to get all my grain in. And I kinda want to try an I2PA soonish.

I made a Mild.

:)
Toney.

[Brownbeard]

I would like to get ChrisKanobi in on this. But I don't think the grain depth is as big a deal if you are not using a manifold.

[Jughead]

Originally posted by Jeff

At this point I haven't found a 24 qt cooler with a spigot on the side.

The spigot is not essential. I have a hose attached to a manifold and just siphon out through the top of the cooler. It works great.

[Jeff]

Another question for everybody: Does anybody fly sparge anymore? And if you do did you use a copper manfold to distribute the water? I have access to an abundance of copper piping so I thought I would give this a try.

Thanks everybody for your help so far!

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by Brownbeard
I would like to get ChrisKanobi in on this. But I don't think the grain depth is as big a deal if you are not using a manifold.

Grain depth is always a big deal. To deep and you risk not extracting all your fermentables. To shallow and your bed may not set up well enough to act as a filter during the lauter/sparge.

[toneyc]

Originally posted by Jeff
Another question for everybody: Does anybody fly sparge anymore? And if you do did you use a copper manfold to distribute the water? I have access to an abundance of copper piping so I thought I would give this a try.

I fly sparged for my first five AG batches. What a PITA! I did batch sparging for the first time this week and it is SO much easier. But when I did fly sparging, I used the tupperware lid floater thingie method or I sprinkled the sparge water over the grain by whipping the end of the hose around a bit. Gets very tiresome after the first, um, 3 minutes or so. So tiresome, in fact, that I went back to extract for a couple of batches. I think the manifold idea or something like a Phil's Sparge arm might be a much better idea.

:)
Toney.

[Jeff]

I don't remember where I saw it, but a cooler had a manifold built into the under side of the lid. A hole was drilled through the lid and a pipe connected to the manifold through the hole. Once you got a siphon going off your sparge water to the manifold I would think it would be pretty easy, it might take a little longer though.

[kellyhpdx]

If you're going to convert a cooler to a mashtun, do yourself a favor and use a stainless steel braided hose instead of trying to construct a complicated manifold. It's cheap, simple, and it works. I've done 10 batches with my converted cooler, and couldn't be more happy.

Just to reiterate what TonyC mentioned earlier. Nearly ALL of Home Depot's braided hoses are polymer (I found out the hard way). The only ones I could find there are in a different section from the braided hoses, and are marketed as a dishwasher hookup kit. Make 100% sure it says stainless steel braid.

Kelly