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With the Melbourne Cup on tomorrow, it's basically a long weekend here. So, bored out of my brains with not much to do (except some tasks that were far too much like chores for my liking), I wandered down to my local Bunnings.

Perusing their plumbing section, I noticed a few bits and pieces that I figured would be good for constructing a mash tun. To cut a long story short, thanks to some really friendly service, I walked out with all the bits and pieces for a mash tun, including the esky, all for under 80 bucks. I had the thing built in less than an hour and on initial testing (plain water only) it works pretty well.

I do not have a single "handy" bone in my body, but was still able to put everything together pretty easily. So for anyone out there hesitating to start mashing grain (like I have been), rest assured that at the very least, the tun is pretty easy to build.

Now I'm at a bit of a loose end, because I have a tun... but hadn't really planned on doing a batch for a few weeks. I've got some reading to do to bone up on mashing technique.

it's basically a long weekend here. So, bored out of my brains with not much to do

TF,

Could have been studying the form guide.

Sounds like you've done well anyway but.

Antsvb wrote:

it's basically a long weekend here. So, bored out of my brains with not much to do

Could have been studying the form guide.

Well, yes... but this was much more fun

nice work TF did you go for the copper manifold or braid? any chance of some pics?

One of the toughest part of the mash is leaving the lid on and not touching the thing while it mashes away.

I ended up having to go out for a walk.

Cheers,
Greg

Questions for the mashers. I am starting to put together a mash system and have a question regards mash/lauter tun. I was originally looking at the cooler with cooper manifold, I then considered plastic bucket with phils false bottom. However with these you can not easily change the mash temp for different reasons (acid rest ect). So I am now looking at a mash/lauter tun as a 50L + ss pot with an ss mesh manifold to a tap on the pot. My questions are how do these perform? Do they suffer from stuck sparges? Can it be insulated so it can still be heated yet keep in heat when at the required temp?

Shaun

I am not real pleased at adding direct heat, I find I burn things and I get uneven heating. I like the single step infusion in a cooler with a manifold as I find my pale malt to be modified enough that I don't need to do a rest. I can however calculate that should I need to.

Dogger

Shaun,

I use an esky as my mash/lauter tun. My limited AG brewing (I've done one, its been in the bottle four days now...) I needed to raise the temp without further water volume. There is a method called 'decoction mashing' see http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter16-4.html I was taking a jug full of mostly water and microwaving it up to temp and adding it back in repeat till target temperature achieved.

So far so good....

Cheers,
Greg.

i find single infusion works well for me. if i have to raise the temp i do it with boiling water.. i don't believe that doing so has any noticable ill effects (in terms of grain to water ratio's etc - i've mashed with upto 6 litres per kilo)
as for the phils phalse bottom - dont do it.. they float & are an absolute PITA. insulated buckets work well but i think an esky would hold temps much better

I've gone for the copper manifold. The braid solution seemed "untidy"... while copper manifolds are pretty tried and tested. Plus, I can disassemble it completely for cleaning.

Although I ended up going the whole hog with the esky, drilling holes and installing a tap... it's quite possible to keep the entire esky intact. Build a copper manifold with a rubber tube that goes over the side and uses a simple plastic tap to control water flow. Initially, this seemed completely illogical to me until I remembered the suction effect . I reckon a setup like that wouldn't costs much more than 20-30 bucks (excluding the esky). John Palmer has a simple picture on the "How to Brew" website.

I'll try and post some pics.

The esky I bought is "only" 25 litres... although reports suggest this should still be enough for a full mash. Having said that, since I only have a 19l brew pot, I'm probably going to do either a partial or a small batch.

I'm in the esky and copper manifold camp!

I drilled the hole in side of esky and connect manifold to tap via a small length of flexible hose, this allows everything to sit squarely in bottom of esky. I soldered up the manifold into two halves as I found that with all pieces separate it had a tendancy to come apart while I was doughing in the grain!

Happy brewing!

hi fellas, what purpose does the manifold serve ?

Thanks everyone

Nick the manifold acts like a crude filter so you can drain off the wort while leaving the grain behind.

TF,

Storing a 30L pot, together with the heating and cooling kit put me off AGing for a fair while (a little bit of slack arseness was in there too. )

I had been partialing etc in a 19L pot when I also came up with the small batch idea. I got a 15L fermenter for the small batch option for my AG's. If a recipie is 23L I halve the ingredients and run up a 11L batch. It boils happily on the kitchen stove. Cooling in the kitchen sink full of ice.

Mash/lauter tun is a 25L esky. My filter is a big bit of muslin, but that is under review.

Still yet to try my first attempt - its been in the bottles now for 4 days but tasted good from the test jar at bottling time.

Cheers,
Greg

Promash is your friend if you intend on doing multi-step mashes. You pretty much start out with a rather stiff mash then add boiling water to increase the whole mash temperature. You are pretty much limited to 3 temperature steps before the mash gets too thin, but if you're going to do that, you probably have a more fancy system anyways.

It is rare that you will ever NEED to do a multi-step mash, unless you have a large proportion of something like rolled oats, which need a rest to deal with the glucans. The only multi-step I have ever done was for a wit with about 35% unmalted wheat and 10% rolled oats. (gogo nightmare sparge)

Some pictures:

http://web.aanet.com.au/najmead/homebrew/

Looks good TF,

let us know how it goes!!

Grabman

nice work TF.. your manifold looks like an artwork

NickMoore wrote:hi fellas, what purpose does the manifold serve ?

Nick,

These pics should make it all clear.

http://brewiki.org/wiki/homebrew/moin.c ... oldGallery

Cheers,

Oliver

Ah yes, I get it now.

Thanks Oli.