mash tun out of old agitator washing machine.

[Hugh Grierson]

 At the batch next the beer fridge is my mums collection of old washing machines, everytime I poured a jug they made me think about using one to brew. Around 150 L, about the right width and depth, enamelled steel, water tight, with a drain hole. Insulate, put some sort of filter screen in the bottom. The pump in the machine might even be sparge friendly. Could big mash tun for massive home brews. Is this beer fueled genius or am I a spazz?

[vdog]

Do it! Take it apart and make sure it's not full of gunk first of course, but provided it's clean it should be sweet. The pump should be sparge friendly - they handle pretty hot water during a wash so wouldn't think that'd create any problems. We use a WM pump for our brewing, including putting boiling wort through it and have never had an issue with it.

[Hugh Grierson]

Its a summer project, and its on, could be a world first if it works. And mum lets me munt her washing machine for my silly beer thing. Will keep you posted.

[Hugh Grierson]

Its a greasy, dirty, old oil smelly bitch of a thing to take apart. yet to work out how to empty grain to, maybe a piviot. still, will take lots of grainy goodness.

[Hugh Grierson]

More like 80 L. Got the bowl off from the washing bits. Now the stainless mesh is cut. Not using a pump, so just needs handles, insulation, taps and legs. Grain and yeast.

[Reviled]

Bro that picture is huge haha. Looks like its more than suitable tho!!

[Hugh Grierson]

I finally got some grain into my new tun, and it was excellent. I ran a sparge sprinkler through the lid, kept the lid on and listened to the sound of spinning sprinkler. . It was a tidy brew day, with almost no time for drinking, and over 90% maltose extraction . We are probably going to have two of these running, stretch our keggles and go for 60L batches. Small file sized photos to.

[Hugh Grierson]

Lots of room for more grain!

[Andre Jaworski]

Looks awesome man, did you get much of a temp drop with all that headspace?

[Hugh Grierson]

The temperature was a surprise, everything stayed really hot. The sprinkler was only a few cm above the grain bed so that helped, as did keeping the lid on and poring through the hole. I reckon everyone should have one.

[warra48]

Great idea.

 

How about leaving the spin cycle operative?

30 seconds or so of spin, and you'd have the world's fastest batch sparge!

[Hugh Grierson]

More agitation than spin, but turning the arm mangler of a ringer into a grain mill would be nice recycling.

[Hugh Grierson]

So the alchemy of  geometry gave me the best extraction ever, and a mean IPA. Its 7.7 %, and tasting pretty fine for a flat green beer, kegged it last night. I have a set of $30 trademe pullies to lift the tun up and down, it will piviot onto a waste bin. The next batch will be 3 lovely cornies, thats a whole third more beer per brewday.