How to Make a Mash Tun

[Bigster]

nice one Jim


Daab - as requested picture of my 17m 8mm chiller. She dont look much but I know I love her ( who sang that song...). Sorry I have now caused a copper shortage!

[Andy]

That certainly is a whole load of copper!

[BlightyBrewer]

If she does the job, she's a winner!

Good work Bigster. :beer

[FlippinMental]

QUOTE (James @ Apr 15 2006, 07:02 AM)



That is a really nice setup FM, I particularly like the igloo cooler.  I like round mash tuns so much better than square, makes life much easier.  Whats the overall quality of the igloo cooler like?  Website suggests it should be A1.

JC
sadly, no brewing spent the day with a paintbrush in my hand. :stun :stun however, tomorrow is the day i have express permission from the her who must be obeyed. spent a little time this evening attaching hoses to the cooler and leak testing - no problem there

james, you asked about the igloo quality. nothing to write home about, in fact the first one went back, the inner tub was not central with the outer tub - my thoughts there being that the insulation might be compromised. the lid is push fit, and like the thermos coolers used by many on this forum, does not appear to be insulated. the cooler comes with a cord attached to the handle and lid so that the two don't become separated. the cord is just and i mean just long enough to allow the lid to be removed. the cord is no more on mine! also with the lid being push fit it does lift a bit but not by much. this happened on both igloos.
i got the igloo because of stuff i read on the internet that warned to stay clear of the thermos coolers as they are cheap crap. from what the group here says thats bullocks.
all said and done, its mine and i love it, its easy to handle and store and tomorrow it goes to work in its new job as a mash tun, giving a deeper grain and therefore superior filtering than that acheiveable by the cheapo-argos-thermos-boring colour-uncool-cooler

[Andy]

FM - we'll see what you have to say after tomorrow's brew sesh is done and dusted (from a Thermos mash tun user).


If the missus lets you of course :rolleyes:

[FlippinMental]

please andy, not even in jest - she's going on about a second coat of paint already. <_< perhaps getting a poodle might help keep her mind elsewhere? no, bad idea

[James]

QUOTE (FlippinMental @ Apr 16 2006, 07:37 PM)james, you asked about the igloo quality. nothing to write home about,
Thanks FM. That’s a shame about the overall quality, but I’m sure it will make great wort. If you haven’t used a round/circular mash tun, I’m sure you’ll like it, especially for batch where you do have to stir; it’s difficult to stir in corners with a square tun!

JC

[Andy]

All quiet from FM today, is that the sound of paint being applied I hear ?

[FlippinMental]

thank you andy and daab, i've been quiet because i've been brewing :pink it took forever, the learning curve is as vertical as straight up can be. got everything nicely set-up and organised, then it went pear shaped from there. :blink: the mash went kind of alright, pre-heated the tun, then striked at 74c, resulting temp fell to 62c. brought that up to 66.7c and put the lid on. an hour and 1/4 later the temp was 65.9c.

sparge was difficult, mashed out at 80c bringing liquid to 18ltr mark in tun. gave it a gentle stir and waited for 10 minutes. opened the tap and nothing, or very little :huh: gave it another gentle stir, waited 10, and nothing <_< gave it a blow job, nothing <_< <_< gave it a right good stir, waited, and the flood gates opened :pink seems the trick here is to rouse the fine particles off the bottom into suspension, the larger particles must fall out quicker preventing the fine stuff from clogging the mesh filter. returned the first half dozen pour offs to the tun then collected to the boiler. filled up the tun to the 16 ltr mark, stirred and waited 10, and nothing (penny hadn't dropped by that time ), messed about as before and eventually got a good fast run off. repeated again topping the boiler to 27 ltr mark and any remainder going into a spare bucket.

boiled for an hour and 30 mins, boy don't it kick for the first 10 mins - had a bit of a boil over but it eventually settled. last 15 mins placed the cooler in to sterilise, then shut it all down. transferred wort to bin at 24c. pitched in the yeast then fitted some cupboard doors :stun

what a marathon - i'm bloody knackered :stun but it was a good session, learnt a lot and hopefully next time things will go a little smoother and quicker. sorry no pic's or notes of any worth, too busy just doing

[Andy]

Nice one FM - well done!

Sounds like you had the same issues with a braided manifold as I've had! It's taken me a few brews to come to the conclusion that I need to give the mash a real vigorous stir a few minutes before I want to perform the run off. I did this with my last brew and have had no problems with final product clarity - it's as clear as a clear thing. As long as you recirc. a litre or so of the initial runoff then all seems well.

[bod]

i've never had the problems you mention when using the braided hose and batch sparging, but i had another problem with what thought was grain particles clogging up the hose on my second run off.
it always runs fine on the first sparge, i used to empty the tun and then was left with a thick layer of what i now know is protein mush, a thick grey layer of stuff covering the top of the grains. when i added the sparge water, and stirred, no matter what i did, i always had a stuck mash on the second run off.
having spoken to the Don of batch sparging, Denny Conn, he advised to just run off enough to leave an inch of wort covering the grain bed(the same principle as using a spinny sparger thingymabob) and then addinging my sparge water, stir, leave 10 mins, then run off, and low and behold it worked!!

doesnt seem to affect everyone though, but he thinks it has to do with the type of grain and the crush as well.

congrats on your first all grain batch though!!! B) regarding you temperature problems though, next time, bump the water temp up to 77c or 78c, that should give you the grain bed temp you want of 66c.

[jean-yves]

with a water temp at 74° it's strange that it fell to 62° <_<
your grist should be frozen

I heat the water at 72°, with the grist at 16-17°, the mash fell at 66-67° B)

[Jim]

I agree with JY there. You should have no trouble getting the mash to start at 65 or so with water at that temperature.

The only variables not accounted for are the grain/water ratio and, as JY said, the temperature of the grist.

[FlippinMental]

pardon delay in responding to all your kind words of encouragement, just got back from a overnight visit to sunny bicester, oxford.

the big drop in temp - the grains had been kept in a very cool place for some time, perhaps this contributed to the drop. didn't think to take grain temp, but would be good practice to record it next time.
here's a phot of end of mash, the one and only taken of the whole process - and one of the yeast head. the lid was caked with dried yeast and stuff, so i've just washed it off under the hot tap and rinsed with sodium metabisulphate, gave it a good shake a put it loosely back on. the wort/beer smells really nice

[Andy]

http://www.promash.com/ has got a good strike heat calculator which I use. It usually comes out at around 72-73degC for a pre-heated tun and aiming for 66degC mash. It takes the grain temp into account also (as long as you measure it ). I put the grain bucket in the airing cupboard the evening before brewing so it's nice and warm come brew day.