Making a Mash tun - Is bigger better?

[krispn]

So I've make a few home brew kits and want to give all grain (AG) a go.

The good lady discovered four 1gal. glass carboys in her new flat and after a very swift decision to go all grain our chat turned to making our own mash tun (MT). Now the likelyhood is we will only be doing small batches initially and due to space restrictions we were thinking about between 2 and 5 gal cooler box to convert to a MT.

I know many folks use much larger home made MT's but with our capacity at a total of four gal. I can't see the need for anyting bigger just yet.

Other than getting totally hooked on the AG brewing process and wanting to 'up production' are there any pitfalls I should be considering before taking the plunge and buying a 5gal. cool box?

The collective wisdom/candour is always welcome.

 

[DethApostle]

Just consider how many (if any) high ABV all grain brews you're going to possibly make in the future.

My initial MT was a 30l coolbox and IIRC the maximum ABV for a 23l brew was about 7.5%.
My new mashtun is a 38.5l Thermopot and is full to the brim today making a 9.1% Russian Imperial Stout.

Obviously this is a pretty rare brew, and for a normal brew day the MT is only around half full.
Also worth pointing out that the Thermopot is awesome for temperature retention compared to plastic...
and it's shiny...

It's worth considering all possible options now so you don't end up buying twice!

DA

 

[simon12]

I agree, you will almost definitely want to be making 23l batches in future and I am finding my 24l cool box limiting if I want to get anything over 6% ABV. I plan to test how much I can get on my next brew.

 

[krispn]

Hey guys thanks for the input.

I'm not wanting to make that Imp.Stout just yet and I'm more interested in getting some small scale all grain brews up and running. The conversion of the cooler isn't that expensive and I've budgeted for this knowing that in the future I may want to go bigger when space allows etc...

I should say that this isn't about making the full 5gal. batch as I'm limited to the four carboys mentioned above but quite happy to have four of these on the go with different brews over one huge batch

It's more about getting into the all grain method so I can experiment and like I say I'm only looking at 1gal. batches here for personal drinking. If it all goes to plan I'll consider a bigger set up but that's gonna have to wait until I live somewhere with more space -no barley wines are on the cards just yet! I know I could make a higher abv Brew in the 5galbut limited to 1gal output volume. I'm ok with this 😃

I'll do the numbers and work out what the max abt will be for a 5gal. versus 10gal. and take it from there but my initial question remains are the pitfalls purely I'll want a bigger MT or related to my overall abv?

Thanks again!

 

[Citizen]

I made my own using 2 x FV`s, one with holes drilled in the botom to act as a sieve and the other with a tap fitted to bottom of the side to drain from, the sieve fits inside the other and then wrapped in foil backed foam it holds temperature and does the job perfectly, this may help, I know its for a 23 litre brew but start small with it and Im sure you`ll go bigger once the results are tasted :-D

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-Your-Own-Brewery-for-Under-100-STEP-1-/

 

[LloydV]

im currently taking inspiration from Citizens build but using 60l thick plastic boxes (rectangular) from Wilkos as they were on sale and it took me a while to find boxes that had a big enough gap when stacked in fit a tap in.