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DIY – All Grain Brewing Mash Tun

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Garage beer homebrewing gear

Brewing beer in the garage

Most of the equipment you need to homebrew you can build yourself.

I bought a homebrewing kit that contained the siphoning/racking hoses, airlock, fermenting bucket and bottling bucket. I got this from my local homebrew shop, Beer Necessities. I did my first five or so brews using my wife’s 4qt stock pots, managing three batches at a time. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.

I now have a proper stainless steel 30qt brew kettle complete with thermometer and spigot that my wife got me as a birthday present. It’s really handy, but you can get away with an aluminum turkey fryer pot. I’ve seen them for under $40 at Walmart.com.

This is all you need for extract brewing (that is, using malt that you buy in powder or syrup form). For All Grain brewing, you’ll need some sort of a mash tun.

In All Grain brewing you start with nothing but cracked grain from your homebrew shop. You soak the grain at 150º for about an hour, then you add water to increase the temperature to 168º and drain (lauter). This extracts the sugar from the grain. I cycle the liquid through twice.

Don Osborn has an excellent step-by-step outline of the process including instructions on building his Mash Tun. I built mine based upon his instructions. I thought it might be useful to document the differences since it’s been a few years since he built his and we’re in different parts of the country. I won’t go into the detail he did.

I got a rectangular cooler from Target for just under $20. I’m sure I could have gotten it cheaper at Walmart, but Target was much closer. Basically, any flat-bottomed rectangular cooler with a drain that screws off will work. Look for the best thermal ratings you can get.

At Lowe’s I got a stainless steel braided toilet hose for about $10. I picked up a valve for about $5 and a four-pack of hose clamps to fit my hoses for about $3. So I built the whole contraption for less than $40.

I put it together in about an hour. Here’s what I did:

I cut the connector fittings off the toilet hose and pulled the steel braiding off the inner plastic hose. It came off pretty easy.
Complete Mash Tun system
I then unscrewed the drain from the cooler so I could work with it. I got some vegetable oil and rubbed it on one end of the inner rubber hose (of the toilet line). I also put some inside the cooler drain shaft.

I then worked the hose through the drain shaft. This easily took the most time of the entire job. It probably took me 30 minutes to get it through (possibly because I fought with it for a while before thinking of the vegetable oil!).

If your hose doesn’t match the size of the drain you’ll have to figure out how to plug the rough hole in the drain. There’s lots of straightforward ways to do it, you’ll just have to scratch your head a bit about your particular situation.

Once I got about 2 inches of the hose through the drain into the cooler, I reinstalled the drain into the cooler.

Mash tun braid fittingThen I put one end of the steel braiding over the hose nub inside the cooler and looped the other end around in a U-shape.

Next I put one of the hose clamps on. I gently twisted the far end of the braid to close it off and fitted it into the clamp next to the hose and tightened the clamp.

Mash tun braided hose inside coolerI now have a braided hose with many little openings that sugar water from the grain can go into but very little of the grain husks can get through. The grain bed itself will also work as a filter for particles.

Outside the cooler, I cut the rubber hose a few inches from the cooler to install the valve. Do whatever length you like. I left about 5 inches so it could hang down off of the counter where I planned to use it.

Mash Tun valvePut a clamp on the hose and insert the valve. Position and tighten the hose on the valve. Use the rest of the hose on the other side of the valve, using another clamp to tighten it on the valve.

My next project is a wort chiller. I’ve made do without one until now, but it’s critical for clear beer and to limit the risk for contamination.


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