Homebrewing DIY: Building a Mash/Lauder Tun out of a water cooler · Jun 18, 02:22 PM
I have decided to move into All Grain brewing and leave the extract behind for the time being. I have really gotten into brewing and All Grain is more work, but gives you the most control of your beer. Instead of buying a bag of pre-extracted sugars from malted grains, in All Grain brewing you extract all the sugars from the grains yourself.
To aid in this process, you need a container for extracting the sugars from the grain (mashing) , a Mash Tun, and a container for separating (sparging) the sugary water from the grain husks, a Lauder Tun. Orrrr, you can be creative and use the same container for both mashing and sparging, and you can even build it on the cheap with common plumbing equipment and a water cooler. A cooler is ideal, because you need the insulation to help maintain your desired temperatures throughout the mashing and sparging processes. I just built a mash/lauder tun and took some pics of the process.
Here are the parts you will need:
a 10 gallon cylindrical water cooler:
a 1/2” ball joint brass faucet
a 1/2” thread brass nipple ~1 long
a 1/2” to 3/4” hex pipe bushing
a lint trap
a 1.5” recessed plastic washer
2 1.25” rubber washers
a 3/4” faucet thread to 1/2” swivel hose adapter
some 1/2” interior diameter plastic tubing
So, those are the parts… assembly is pretty straight forward. Here goes:
Step 1: Remove original plastic spigot from water cooler
I have to use a wrench on the inside locknut, it was on there tightly!
Step 2: assemble the washers for the outer hole
Simply fit the rubber washer inside the plastic washer. If you can find them, just get a large rubber washer that will fill the entire outer side of your cooler’s spigot hole. I couldn’t find the right rubber washers, so i improvised with a plastic/rubber combination.
Step 3: place the washers in the outer side of the spigot hole
Step 4: thread the brass nipple into the brass spigot
You can use teflon tape on the thread of the nipple if you want to. Not a bad idea, but i didn’t have any teflon tape.
Step 5: attach the lint trap to the hex bushing
remove the lint trap from the packing and straighten it out. Be careful, stray strands of the steel threads can be sharp!
place the threaded part of the bushing inside the lint trap and then wrap the rest of the lint trap opening around the bushing. Then using one of the zip ties provided with the lint trap, secure the lint trap to the bushing.
Step 6: attach the trap and spigot to the cooler
If you have some Plumber’s Putty, i recommend lining the cooler’s spigot hole with a thick bead of it. this will ensure you will not have any leaks!
stick the spigot with attached nipple though the front of the cooler’s spigot hole, then screw the bushing with attached lint trap onto the extruding thread of the nipple on the inside of the cooler.
Step 7: attach the hose adapter
Step 8: attach the hose to the adapter
So that’s it. Not too complicated, but it makes a great mash/lauder tun on the cheap. I just made my first batch with this baby yesterday, and it worked like a charm. So grab a water cooler, make a run to the hardware store and start mashing!
☆ Jonathan Greene