Building a mash tun (and other grain n00b questions)

[squirt in the turns]

Hi all,

I've been lurking in this section of the forum for a while now and can resist no longer! The time has come for me to build a mash tun. The victim is to be one of these, which I'll be picking up this weekend: http://www.kellyscamping.com.au/p/10988 ... oler-.html

Until I get a bigger kettle and a better understanding of water chemistry, it'll just be for partials, but I figured I'd do it right the first time and hopefully be well on my way to AG. The plug on the bottom of one end of this Esky should also mean that no modification to the thing itself is necessary, with the added bonus that in a pinch it can still be used to hold the finished product. The design I'll be going with is the SS braid clamped over the end of a copper tube, with a bung to plug the hole in the Esky.

Now, apologies in advance for the following barrage of questions :
- My understanding is that a shallow grain bed is better, so 36 litres should make the cut, right up to doing full AG batches?
- Very few of the SS braid designs that I've seen online seem to be anything more complicated than a single length of braid crimped at one end. Is it worth using T junctions to make a loop and add some cross over channels too?
- It looks like everything I’ll need to make the filter can be found easily at Bunnings or somewhere similar, with the probable exceptions of a food safe bung and valve of some kind to control the flow when draining and sparging. Is the LHBS the place to go for these? Can anyone recommend where to go on the Gold Coast, or am I better off with an online supplier?
- On the subject of the bung: if I can’t find one pre-drilled, does anyone have a foolproof technique for making a hole? I’ve tried to do this myself before with silicone bungs for an unrelated project, and made an absolute mess of several of them.
- Stirring the mash: is there a special technique that prevents the filter from lifting off the bottom of the tun? Reading this account of Svyturys and chadjaja’s AG deflowering: http://homebrewandbeer.com/forum/viewto ... =13&t=9678, it sounds like exactly the sort of inevitable calamity that could befall overeager rookie grain brewer such as myself.
- I’m mightily tempted to just fork out $274 to Craftbrewer for the Crown hot water urn with concealed element. Is it possible to fit some kind of hop and hot/cold break filter inside one of these?

Well, that probably covers it for now. Cheers,
Matt

[warra48]

Go for it. A 35 litre mash tun is a good size for a single 23 litre batch, and will allow you to also do high gravity batches if you ever wish to.

I wouldn't be overly concerned with water manipulation. Your local water should be OK for the time being. The first dozen or so AG batches I did were all just done with our local water, without additions of any sort, and it worked out just fine. I have recently scaled back my water manipulation to a minimum, with no noticable detriment to my beers. To really do justice to water manipulation, you need to write to your local council or water authority and ask them for an analysis of the typical make up of water in your supply area. Have a look at BeerSmith, and download the free trial. If you look at the water tool, you will be able to make a list of the particular constituents you need to ask about.

To answer your other questions:
1. Given you are using a braid, batch sparging is your only realistic option, and therefore the grain depth is not particularly important. A 35 litre mash tun will give you adequate grain bed depth. If you were to fly sparge (not recommended with a braid), then a deeper grain bed may be of benefit.
2. A single length of braid will work just fine if you batch sparge. You can always lift up one end of the mashtun when draining/sparging to help drain it towards the outlet. (again, not recommended for fly sparging).
3. I use a manifold in my mashtun, and bought all the bits and pieces at Bunnings. I notice my local HB shop has different bungs available, and they will be just fine. The other place I've seen them is at Clark Rubber. You are not very far from Ross at CraftBrewer. Check out his website. Probably worthwhile talking to him and ordering anything you need from him, including your grains, hops, and yeast. You'd be at the shop in 30 to 45 minutes, assuming you're not down South like Coolangatta.
4. Can't help you with drilling or making a hole in a bung. Talk to Ross, he's always been willing to help with advice.
5. To prevent the braid from lifting, some have inserted a piece of copper pipe with slots cut in it into the braid. Might be worth considering.
6. I'd talk to Ross as to how to use the Crown hot water urn if you are tempted by it. I'd say it would be good for a Hot Liquor Tank, not sure it would do as a kettle.

Others will probably be able to expand on what I've said. Hope you have a great time brewing.

[SuperBroo]

Hi Squirt,

I use a braid, and have only been doing AG for about 2-3 months, and I get 75% efficiency now all the time.

I use 2 brass fittings that i had laying around and ran the braid thru them to keep it down.
I like the idea of a copper tube inside though as suggested by Warra.

You can also gently push it down with yourstirring paddle.

My esky has a bung in the bottom in one corner, and because i have the tools needed, i just drilled and tapped it to a 1/4" bsp thread, and used a brass elbow onto the braid, and a small ball valve for the outlet.

My biggest tips with mashing, and I'm only a newbie too, are...
- Write EVERYTHING down, so you can learn how your system works with regard to temperature and efficiency etc.
- When you add strike water, give it a thorough stirring without aerating it before checking the temperature. I made the mistake a few times of trying to correct the temperature, which would have been OK if I had just stirred thoroughly.

AG brewing is the best thing I've done.

I thoroughly recommend doing Drsmurtos golden ale, its a winner.

Cheers,
Chris

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Matt - get into it and you won't look back. I have a cylindrical mashtun and I use a domed false bottom like the ones at the bottom of beerbelly's webpage: http://www.beerbelly.com.au/mashequip.html

Grainbed depth is important if you're fly sparging but as mentioned before, it looks like you'll stick to batch sparging which is fine.
I think a braid crimped is fine in a kettle, not a mashtun, unless the braid is fixed into position. You are much better off with a solid fixed false bottom in the mashtun, IMHO.
I think the Crown urn is an excellent hot water tank - don't boil your brew in it - I doubt you could get a decent rolling boil and the beerstone in the bottom of the urn would be a biatch to remove...

Cheers,
TL

[chadjaja]

I use a 40L birko as both my HLT and kettle and it never misses a beat. If you want a kettle and keep it simple I can't say a bad thing about the Birko and you get a great boil with it wrapped in a $5 camping matt that you just take off when cooling the wort post boil.

I wish I had got a 36L esky as whilst my 26L does single batches fine when I do Belgians I need to scale down the brew and only end up with 13L post boil.

I use a single braid simply attatched to some silicone hosing and clamped at the end. I get 75-80% consistently and consistency is far more important. I have no trouble with the braid lifting during my batch sparges

Add 3 milk crates and a chiller and your kit is complete enough to make great beer

[squirt in the turns]

Thanks dudes for all your excellent replies.

Will definitely be visiting Craftbrewer. I'm in Surfers so it's not too far. Hopefully will be picking up a tempmate for a fermenting fridge too.

Warra, thanks, I'll not bother with water manipulation for now. Batch sparging was my intention anyway too - I've seen a method posted here (don't recall who by I'm afraid) where the batch sparge hot liquor volume is determined by the pre-boil vol less the vol drained from the mash. Seems the simplest way for a newbie. Do I stir when adding the sparge water?

Chris, I’ll definitely be keeping track of all the variables – there’s really no other way to produce consistent results, right? The Doc’s famed JSGA clone is top of my AG priorities. Going to try a kit and bits version tomorrow (possibly my last ever extract brew before going AG!) – will be interesting to see how they compare.

TL, a false bottom would be nice, but the bank is going to break as it is. As others are reporting high efficiency with braids, I’ll see what kind of results I get before further expenditure. Using a braid in the kettle – wouldn’t the filtration be so fine that it would take forever to drain? I guess that doesn’t really matter, and if it makes a cheap and effective screen for hops and cold break, I’m all for it.

I would imagine there’s not a big difference between a Birko and a Crown. Chadjaja, are you using anything in the kettle as a filter? I too plan to use it as both a kettle and HLT, meaning I’ll have to collect the wort in something else (probably a fermenter) before transferring it back into the urn – is this what you’re doing? Are there any issues doing this? The only one that comes to mind is taking care not to aerate the wort in the process. The crates are for stacking up into some kind of ghetto multi-tier system for gravity driven transfers, right? Love your camping mat insulation idea too.

The Craftbrewer website does say of the Crown urn: “These are our preference for boiling wort”. Wouldn’t the concealed element mean that it’s no more of a biatch to clean than any other SS kettle? I want it because I don’t have any of the other requisite equipment for large boils (30l+ stock pot, ring burner with stand, reg, even a gas bottle). The Rambo burner on CB looks the business, but that gets me less than halfway there for $190, although with 50MJ/hr to the Crown’s 2400w, it’s what, nearly 6 times more powerful?

One more quick question, guys: where’s the best place to get coiled 3/8” soft copper tube? I say 3/8” cos I’m led to believe it’ll kink less easily when bending by hand. Crappy Bunnings only had ½” and it’s $115 for 18m which is absurd when a ready made immersion chiller can be had for, what, $130?

[chadjaja]

As far as your Q's for me. I don't use anything to filter. The tap sits a few inches above the bottom of the urn leaving about 2.5L's of wort/trub. I simply tilt the urn to get out the wort and its pretty easy to stop once you only have trub left. I drain my mash runnings into a 30L cube and then transfer that from the tap via a bit of tubing to the urn once again for the boil to avoid aeration. Once the wort is cooled after the boil I simply elevate the urn and open the tap running the wort into the the fermenter. This does a great job of aerating the wort before pitching the yeast and eliminates the need to stir.

The two milk crates give the the best height to transfer via gravity I've found and its dead easy to lift each time and move around. Its so simple and easy really.

So to break it down, my three tier system.

Heat mash water on top tier (three milk crates), empty into esky (two milk crates)
Mash out into cube on garage floor
Heat sparge water, empty into mash tun
Runnings into cube till I get my boil volume
Elevate cube onto two milk crates and run into urn via tube attached to tap
Boil wort, cool wort
Elevate urn onto two milk crates and run directly into fermenter
pitch yeast
relax with a beer

And yes you stir and give the grain a good stir after adding each water addition. Disturbing the grain bed using the batch sparge method isn't a concern too much. I leave the grain bed to settle for 10 minutes after the first mash out water addtion after the mash but the next water additions I run it off right away. Of course you should recycle a few lites of wort after each water addtion to the mash tun till it runs clear to prevent grains in the boil and settle the grain bed.

And lastly the birko seems to be the best choice as a kettle with its element rather than the Crown. A few have disabled the boil protection on the crown only to have it blow up on them as a result. The Crown can struggle to get a good boil going from all reports and the exposed element is easy to clean and not a problem at all. I think its more of a concern for those that do brew in a bag and worry about burning/melting the bag etc.

[SuperBroo]

Squirt,
I bought 3 x 10 metre coils of 1/2 inch annealed copper tubing, and some brass compression fitting joiners, all up cost me about 40 bucks at Bunnings ????
That was only a few months ago.

The 1/2" tubing bent qhite easily, and i have no kinks in it.

The joiners are a bit bulky, but it works a treat.

I used some air hose instead of garden hose, as its softer and less of a pain to use.

Cheers, Chris

[squirt in the turns]

Thanks again, guys.
I might have to head to a different Bunnings or go somewhere else. They were certain that the 18m coil was all they had Otherwise maybe a local trade supplier can do it.
Chris, did you get air hose in Bunnings too?

Chad, are you attaching a hose to the tap on your urn at any point in your process? Is it easy enough to do with the standard tap?

I'm still eyeing up the Crown, they seem to be a bit easier to get hold of than Birkos. I did do some searching regarding the boil dry protection mod expecting to find some real horror stories after your "blow up on them" comment But it seems that in the worst cases they just burn out halfway through brewday (I guess that is a horror story!)

Reading here :http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum// ... opic=35456 it does sound like a modded urn is likely to just give up after a few brews. I wonder if the Crown with the exposed element is prone to the same boil dry protection stop-start issues, or if a modded one is as vulnerable to failure. A theory mentioned in that AHB thread is that the concealed element burns out as it's mostly heating air under the pot. If I end up doing any modding, I at least know a (sort of) sparky who'll make sure I'm not going to kill myself (and check my Tempmate wiring too).

[chadjaja]

Nah I don't need a hose on the urn tap. It sits above the mash tun and just drains into it. The mash runnings go into a cube and thats transferred to the urn via tubing on the tap but the post boil wort in the urn just goes into the fermenter from height again and it foams up wonderfully aerating it for me.

As for the birko vs crown when all is said and done there has been lots of negatives about the crown but hardly a thing said about the birkos and a stronger boil. You should be able to order the birko easily enough to get delivered.

[SuperBroo]

Hi Squirt,
I had an old breathing hose in the shed and used that. (From a past life when I used to wear breathing gear welding up fuel tankers for a living - glad I've moved on from that).

Garden hose is probably cheapest, but air line hose is easier to roll up / doesnt kink.

I'm going to make a 3/8 stainless chiller one day, but only if I can get the tubing at a bargain price somewhere.

cheers,
Chris

[squirt in the turns]

Hey all. Well, I actually built the mash tun a few weeks ago. Then I moved home and things got a bit hectic, so have yet to test it or make much more progress towards my AG dreams. Aiming to break it in next weekend, I think.

I ended up having to use plastic in a few places I'd rather not have; Bunnings didn't have ANY metal barbs . I've ended up with the braid in a loop connected to a barbed T-piece (plastic), which screws into the brass nipple. Outside the esky I've got a standard screw tap (some plastic parts) like you'd have to control supply to a toilet cistern, etc. Probably should have gone with a ball valve, but we'll see how it goes. Plastic again for the barb that screws into that.

I'll try to post some pictures to get your feedback.

Is it a good idea to boil or soak brass in white vinegar to clean it and remove lead from the surface?

Also, the O-rings I've used are rubber. Is this likely to be a problem?

Cheers guys.

[hirns]

The plastic of your esky is food grade. The polly fittings might be problematic in terms of not only heat, but imparting a taste.

Give it a rinse with some boiling water and then test the tun by filling it up with boing water and leaving it sit for an hour and check for leaks. Let some of the water out through your tap as well. Store some of the water drawn from the tap and allow it to cool and then taste it for any imparted plastic taste.

Hope it works out!

Cheers

Hirns