Does anyone have any links for a tutorial on how to make the manifold for a rectangle cooler mash tun? I found a few online but none I really liked. Thanks for the help!
Checkout http://www.bargainfittings.com/ It has all the parts you need to convert your cooler with some tutorials.
Do some searching on homebrewtalk.. Plenty of resources there. I did some round ones and it was pretty easy if you have a vision of what all you want. Can be simple, or high end. Choices and a simple matter of money.
http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/mashtun.htm make this one but don't do the weird plastic thing that requires two tubes. just use one tube and control mash flowing with one of those plastic racking clips. i used that tutorial and my shit works fucking famously, it cost me about $32 and i mash like a madman. efficiency like what!!!! the one caveat of that kind of mashtun is that with the braided stainless steel tubing you need some tools to cut each end (such as a dremel) and pliers to remove the inner plastic tubing. but all in all you need: 3/8 inch wide plastic tubing, one braided SS tube, one cooler, two hose clamps, and one of those racking clips.
I just got a cooler and tubing for my own. it's a 48-qt rectangular cooler, and I plan to make a more-or-less figure 8 shaped manifold. I may be getting too fancy, but I figure that building the thing is half the fun. I'm using standard off-the-shelf tubing and fittings, cutting the tube to fit what I need. I have the idea in my head, I just need to map it out and check some calculations before cutting.
Not to thread jack, but does anyone encourage building a manifold? A bazooka-style is a lot easier and yields 75-80% efficiency when double-batch sparging.
