120L blue bin for a MT?

[boingy]

The harder but way cooler option is to have a fab shop build you a basic gimball so you can swivel it through 180 and dump it with gravity...

Yeah, and you could have a chute to take the grain down into your secret underground power station where pigs will consume the grain and generate methane to power your home, and perhaps those of your neighbours. And you could have the pigs tended by a genius dwarf who rides on the shoulders of a simpleton giant. No... wait... that's Mad Max 3 I'm thinking of. Soz. I guess you could just chuck the grain in the compost bin instead.

[Kev888]

Heh Heh! Don't - I really need to sort some fundamantel things like water supplies and drains first, but now the simple MT upgrade has morphed and I'm whistfully thinking of hoists and grain chutes and things...

Cheers
kev

[pantsmachine]

Mazda had a simple acronym for their engineers when developing the MX-5.

Keep
It
Simple
Stupid

I try and live by this and when i inevitably go all fancy coz my blokeness says its the way to go i regret it and see the truth of the acronmym. SWMBO agrees!

Still though, stainless gimball with drawf attachment, what's not to like! I apologise to any dwarves i may have offended with the last sentence. Its actually carnival dwarves we need as they will be used to the rapid change in axis from riding the wheel of death while upside down and playing 'la vie en rose' on a French Horn.




Sorry.

Is it just me or was 'In Bruges' a classic beerlovers movie?


I'll get my coat.

[Kev888]

Yes indeed, KISS is usually the best way.

But I also get frustrated by things that don't work well. I can spend days working on something to save just a few minutes.
But I guess its a hobby so if it makes me happy...

Attaching small people sounds like a step too far though..

Cheers
Kev

[boingy]

Kev, you already attach very small people. What do you think the mash enzymes are???? Dave Line even drew a picture of them and told us their names.

But yes, I am firmly in the KISS camp. I was all set to buy a couple of pumps and associated stuff but then I figured I could make a gravity-operated system. So I have a 5 tier set-up in the garage, facilitated by the fact that I have about 8.5 feet of headroom in there. It's tight but I can flow liquid from HLT to MT to boiler to fermenting fridge to cornie by just opening taps. The top of the boiler is about at shoulder height so there is no dangerous ladder + boiling liquid thing and I built the shelves to be seriously chunky and bolted them to the wall. It works well.

But just 'cos I KISS doesn't mean I should not tempt others to be more ambitious!

[Kev888]

Ah yes, those poor little enzymes - I must be kinder to them!

Yes indeed, my current setup is very KISS - all gravity except for pumping out the boiler afterwards and I really like its simplicity in use (though not necessarily in cleaning, at the mo). There'll have to be some changes if I get an MT big enough to batch sparge, but I'm not looking to recreate a James Bond-ish chemical plant!

I did some tests last night - the blue bin looks promising! I can (just) reach the bottom so no worse than my other tanks, and it is actually quite easy to tip with 21+kg of wet grain in the bottom- the extra height helps with leverage there. I'd just need some sort of ledge or restraint or something to hold it horizontal afterwards, whilst I slide the grain out.

There is going to be some sort of compromise on the height though; ideally for access it would be on the floor but thats no good for tipping down into something. Guess I'll have to have it high enough for say a builders trug and use a step or something if I need to reach the bottom. Hmm, that same setup could benefit emptying the boiler too, which would be possible if I can no longer use gravity anyway. Does it never end?

Cheers
Kev

[garwatts]

Does it never end?

Cheers
Kev

It's a hard life

[WishboneBrewery]

Back to you initial topic, I'm sure there must be some ratio of Diameter to Depth that works well for a Mash Tun... anyone?
I think you ideally want more Diameter than Depth, guessing from what we have at work maybe 2/3 of the diameter for the depth. (all guestimates are 'ish')

[Kev888]

Thanks pdtnc, that seemed very likely so you spurred me on to do a bit more digging; found a general guide in John Palmers book here - second paragraph:

The shape of the cooler is only important in that it determines the grainbed depth. It is important to have a minimum grainbed depth of at least 4 inches. The optimum depth at this scale is probably about 1 foot. If it is too shallow, it won't clear sufficiently; too deep and it will tend to get stuck.

I'll check if its in the current addition when I get home in case thoughts have changed, but its a good indication that the blue bin should be okay; It'll probably be about 40cm deep or so when compacted during the run off, which seems okay as my scale is a tad bigger than normal (though the bed'll be quite a bit deeper when suspended in the mash). Yay!

Cheers,
Kev

[brewsters millionths]

the preferred acronym in these politically correct times (and it helps a bit as well) for KISS is "keep it stupidly simple"
actually a bit more accurate and less offensive to the more sensitive types.
I'm not, but when in a supervisory position it helps until you get to know peoples limits.