In prepearation for my 1st all grain brew, I built a lauter tun using a 32 Qt cooler, with a simple home made 304 stainless slip fit manifold, and SS ball valve. I used a 32Qt, to eliminate a future upgrade for bigger batches, and have read that more surface area will lead to less chance of a stuck sparge. Hindsight is, that I never envisioned that a 10-12lb grain bill would create such a thin layer on the bottom of the cooler. The manifold sits 3/4" above cooler bottom, possibly a moot point considering that the factory bulkhead penetration is that high as well, so even if the manifold sat on the bottom, wort won't flow uphill. - I guess my question is, will this tun work for such a small grain bill? - Should I tilt the cooler to reduce the suface area? - Or should I buy a cylindrical cooler, and go from there?
Yes, it will work. I would get that manifold on the bottom though. The wort will flow as long as the mash level is above the bulkhead, and siphon action will empty it to the bottom. A thin mash bed is ok. I use a 50qt cooler and make small batches, with as little as 8 lbs of grain and it works just fine. Temps are a little tougher to hold but still ok. I also prefer doing batch sparging with smaller batches. I'm not sure what your brewing but unless you malt bill is >50% wheat I wouldn't worry about a stuck mash. What are you brewing?
I'm going to brew a pale rye ale. The bill called for 4# belgian bicuit malt (using vienna for a substitute), 3.5# klages malt (using maris otter substitute), 2 # flaked rye, 1# flaked barley. Hops schedule called for perle, and willmette, but I have to substitute the perle with northern brewer. I wanted to safale us-05, but they were out, so I had to buy safale us-04. Anticipated gravity should be 1.052, so I bought 2 packs of yeast, seeing as the original gravity will be over 1.048. LHBS liits my options. Hopefully this won't be an abortion, do you think the baby will be OK?
Oh, I forgot to mention, I'll be doing a step mash in my brew kettle while heating my liqour kettle, and transfering to my lauter tun. My manifold is slip fit for EZ cleaning, so I'm a little worried about any siphon action helping me out. You think that tilting the cooler any would help?
Sounds like it will be a good beer. It shouldn't be an abortion. Tilting will help if it's not draining, I do that sometimes towards the end of the drain off if I need to. Since this is your first mash you'll have to pay attention to your mash temp. I like to measure it in the center and closer to the bottom than top. It can take up to 5 min for the temp to stabilize so don't panic if you see high or low numbers. And don't be afraid to thoroughly mix the mash at any point in the process. If you're using a lab thermometer take care not to break it in the mash. And, for now, don't worry too much about thickness of your mash. It's not as a significant factor as some may lead you to believe. It's fine tuning that you can work on later. If you need to add water to adjust the mash temp, it takes much less cold water to bring the temp down than it takes hot water to bring the temp up. So if you're worried about hitting your mash temp error on the high side. You can cool it down quicker than you can heat it up. Based on your malt bill and assuming 70% mash efficiency you probably won't hit 1.052 if you're doing 5 gal. So I'd either make a smaller batch using the same malt bill or have some DME on hand to add to the kettle to bump up the SG to hit your target. You'll need to hit about 80% eff to hit your 1.052 target. You may not do that the first time, but you never know. So take good notes for future batches. I'm not sure what you mean by doing a step mash in your brew kettle? I thought you had a 32 qt cooler set up for a mash tun? Last tip, if you haven't crushed the malt yet, and you plan to do it at your LHBS, run it through the mill twice. That will give you your best shot at hitting a higher eff. I apologize for rambling on... Good luck Cheers,
Thanks for your info, it isn't rambling, it's just what I was hoping for. I'm only going to use the cooler for a lauter tun at the moment, asI feel I'll have more control with the step mash in a brew kettle, it has a valve, but no false bottom. My cooler lauter tun has a simple 304 S.S. manifold that isn't much of a manifold, as it is just a single 19" piece of pipe, well perforated with 1/8" holes every 1/2" but on both sides of three axis, for a total of six rows of holes. I'm a little nervous about using the set-up. Think I should let it fly, or would you think I'd be better off with a perforated bucket inside my bottling bucket for a lauter tun? Also, how does one figure the mash efficiencies? Oh, and I forgot to mention, I did pick up 3# DME for boost, if neccessary. I was told 32oz weight DME will boost my gravity about ten points, sound about right to You??
Honestly, you'll find it much easier to maintain temperatures in the cooler. And I would just go with a single infusion mash, once you get some practice with that you can move to a step mash. There is really no need to step mash with your malt bill. If you decided to stick with the step mash, be very cautious of scorching if you are direct firing. You must stir constantly during when the burner is on. 1/8" holes are kinda big IMO so I'm not sure how that is going to work. Personally, I'd wrap that pipe with some SS screen. You can find how to calculate sugar points and mash efficiency in "how to brew" that is available on line free. That will answer your last two questions. I would recommend that book to all new all grain brewers. If you have questions after reading it BM me or respond here. But it should be fairly straight forward. Cheers,
One tip for just starting all-grain and using a cooler. Make sure your mashwater temperature is 5-10 degrees warmer than calculators will recommend. This will make up for thermal loss of the cooler. I heat my water about 10 degrees over, throw it in the cooler, shut the lid, and give it 5-10 minutes to stabilize. then i stir the water up a bit until the water is the right temperature. Easier to cool it by stirring than it is to add more hot water.
