Mash Tun Build - Parts

The lure of all grain brewing was just too great, and so, with only three batches under my belt, I am making the jump.  A while ago I acquired a 48 quart cooler that would serve as my mash/lauter tun.  It has sat, waiting, for its turn to transform into a beautiful butterfly.  I finally gathered all the parts I would need and started measuring.

I knew I wanted to use a four drain design because of the very compelling charts in John Palmer’s How to Brew.  I also wanted to use copper because I wanted more practice soldering.  I also like the look of copper for whatever reason.  I also agreed with Palmer’s observation that leaving the long drain tubes free from the end connectors would make it easier to clean out the entire system.  

I went with the trusted and exceptional Bargain Fittings for the bulkhead and valve.  I can’t say enough good things about this place: they have great prices, ship extremely quickly, and are absolutely excellent.  I most likely ordered the wrong nipple for my cooler.  I probably could have benefited from a slightly bigger nipple, but I can still get everything connected.  I also realized that the pipe to male NPT fitting was not going to work.  I would have no way to screw it on, so I went and got a brass 1/2” pipe to 1/2” compression fitting which should do the trick.

I got everything dry fitted and realized another problem with this design.  The whole drain assembly is sitting about a half an inch above the bottom of the vessel.  I am going to get a 45 degree copper fitting which should allow me to position the drain on the bottom of the cooler, otherwise I would have a lot of dead space.  I might have to shorten the drain pipes as well to accommodate the bend.

Now that everything has been dry fitted and I have made some necessary changes to the design, it is time to fire up the torch and start soldering these parts together.  Once that is done and the slots have been cut in the long drain pipes, I will run the cooler through some calibration steps for Beer Tools Pro so the software will be better able to calculate strike water temps and how hot the sparge water should be.