Another newbie setup question. I have a couple new, never used, Rubbermaid 5 gallon coolers. I've heard of the 10 gallon variety being used (after conversion) to a mash tun. Could I use one as a fermenter? Just wondering about the plastic and temperature control (although I'm sure its pretty good at maintaining temp vs. bucket style fermenter). Let me know if you have any concerns. And yes, I now a glass carboy is ideal and I will get one down the line.
I would think it would be tough to control the temp for a fermentation for an extended period of time in a cooler and that is a bad thing. The temp would raise a lot faster than normal.
shouldn't be a problem if you can keep the temperature under control. fermentation generates some heat, your brew could get too warm if you aren't careful. the plastic is foodsafe so thats not an issue. you will need to figure out an airlock or at least a good way to keep bugs and the cat out of your brew. a 5 gallon food safe pail and cover is very cheap. so cheap that there isn't any good reason to not have a few. if you are willing to spend money on the ingredients and invest the time to make beer, you really should get a proper fermentation and bottling bucket. save yourself the hassle of glass unless you really like fragile, heavy and bulky. oh yeah, you need more than 5 gallon capacity to ferment 5 gallons. you want to minimize headspace because of the oxygen, but your krausen is going to crawl right out of a 5 gallon primary. Cheers.
^^^Solid Advice here^^^ You are looking at less than 15 bucks for a new bucket, complete with airlock opening in the lid. There is a reason a typical primary is 6.5 gallons . . . you really need the headspace to be about 30% larger than your brew capacity.
Solid advice, everyone. Thank you. Just thought if it was a better option than the food safe bucket, but I guess it wouldn't be. What about using a larger cooler as a mash tun? That ok?
a cooler is ideal for a mash tun. your 5 gallon Rubbermaid will work very well. tghere are alot of designs available. youll have to figure out how to build the manifold (pvc or copper pipe) and the faucet/bulkhead fitting. Palmers book How To Brew has more infor then youd ever need for this project. id guess that 99% of all grain brewers are using a cooler mash tun they built themselves. good luck.
I am worried that 5 gal isn't big enough for a mash tun. I guess I'll have to see for myself when I help out my local homebrew store guy with an all-grain brew. Now the question is, what beer do I get to spoil him with for letting me help and learn?
I have about a 12 gallon rubbermaid rectangular cooler for my mash tun and for big beers it is necessary. A 5 gallon cooler may work on smaller beers but I could see it being an issue for bigger beers.
I use a 5 gallon mash tun and there is a limit how big a beer I can brew with it (assuming I want 5 gallons of beer). However, upgrading just means getting a bigger cooler. Most of the hardware will transfer over without issue, including the all important mesh screen filter (which is a little too big right now but should be perfect for a bigger cooler). BTW I got the mesh screen attachment thingie at the LHBS. It fit right on the hardware and works like a champ. I'm sure they can be found online too.
In the case where the 5 gallon cooler is already owned (which it is in this case) then it makes sense to do what you can at this time. Good point about the hardware transfer. If the decision had to be made to buy one or the other, I feel the choice is obvious. When it comes to homebrewing I always find that it pays off to get the larger piece of equipment than you think you need (mash tun, boil kettle).
Tell him to keep it under ten sixty and five oz of hops. Otherwise this could get expensive for you. On a side note, I'm going to call session beers speed limit beers from now on. You're going to fit in well here.
5 gallon MT isn't ideal but it could work. You will probably need to keep your mashes on the thicker side.
Depends on what you're brewing. To get an idea, you could try the 'Can I Mash It' calculator about halfway down the page at this link... http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
