morebeer cooler system

[Mark]

Hey fullas

I'm looking at buying a cooler mashing system from morebeer, they look awesome. Has anyone bought one of these and can they recommend them?

[denimglen]

With the conversion rate not in our favour at the moment and the bulky nature of the item is it really cost affective? I dunno - it may be if you really want it but I'd weigh up the local option. While not having the bling status it will make an excellent beer.

If you look at the B3-150 system at 190USD, excluding shipping, compared to what you could get local that would work out about $135NZ

Rubbermaid rectangular cooler - $70 - the cylindrical ones would be nice but are not a necessity and you can mash more grain in this cooler. You can buy the cylinder ones here but they are WAY overpriced.
Shank, ball valve, fittings and hose, braided hose - about $65 - on the high side

IMO the one they have there isn't necessary with the fly sparge set up with two coolers. For homebrewers I reckon batch sparge is the business. I get about 85% extract efficiency from batch sparging, about 70% into the fermenter.

I'd say for the price and quality of what you get the morebeer system would be very good, but going to payless plastics then to bunnings and DIYing it seems like the better option to me.

Hope that helps.

[Greig McGill]

"What he said". :)

Beer porn always looks so good and is hard to resist, but in the interests of economy, you'll save yourself heaps following denimglen's advice, and your beer will be just as good.

[Mark]

You're right, that would be a better option, but the morebeer systems are very tempting in terms of ease and results (I'm not much of a DIYer!) Sourcing a large brew pot, welding a tap on, making a wort chiller etc etc, all problems that are taken out of the equation buying online. I've got a mate here who reckons he can help me make a mash system but if it falls through I'll bite the bullet and shell out for a pre made system. The only drawback (aside from cost) is the B3-150 looks a bit small.

[Mike Neilson]

I have a 5 Gal More beer mash tun, best thing since hop pellets. For the extra Money spent you get beeter eff, (saves money on grains) no stuck sparges, well controled run offs and it just looks cool, o for the bigger system, I wish I did

[Mark]

how many liters of wort will you normally end up with in your fermenter with the 5 gal system?

[Mike Neilson]

23l. it can handle easy, all depends on the weight of the grain bill and how high you want your FG.

[Stu McKinlay]

I'm with Mike. I did go straight to the 10gallon (though at a better exchange rate and when the shipping was cheaper. If I had a bigger kettle I could easily do 60L of beer in one brewday. Then I could compare three yeasts instead of two.

I comes with bloody good ball valves, a stainless false bottom and the sparge arm.

Respect.Morebeer.Aiiii!

[Mark]

Hard to argue with that! I normally brew around 25L at a time, my o.g.'s between 1050 and 1060, although it would be nice to have the luxury of brewing more or a high grav beer. Got the urge to buy something decent as I'm sick of mashing with pots and a seive(!) and, although I respect the awesome job people here have done making their own brew systems, I can see the project dragging on for months and I'll end up making something really crap.

[denimglen]

What % extract efficiency and brewhouse eff are you getting?

To be honest I can't see how the MoreBeer setup could be any better than any other system... with any system it just takes a little tuning to minimise deadspace and crushing as fine as possible for your system to maximise extract.

I've never had a stuck sparge with either the braided hose or a copper manifold and I crush quite finely.

[Stu McKinlay]

My extract varies a bit depending on the beer I'm brewing but it is generally around 70% for standard ales up to 6%. More importantly, my run-off is crystal clear.

It is long past the time when someone should have said this for all homebrewers to think about:
EXTRACT EFFICIENCY DOES NOT EQUAL QUALITY. Commercial brewers are obsessed with efficiency because every percentage point costs them $$$. I worry that homebrewers who obsese about extract efficiency are sacrificing quality for quantity.

Totally agree with you about what is better - I'm not saying the morebeer cooler system is better than anything else. It just works for me and I'd certainly recommend it (especially if your time is very precious and you don't want to spend days sourcing parts and building). I've had a less than pleasant experience sourcing equipment for DIY homebrew gear in Wellington. Maybe I've just been in the wrong stores - the stores focussed on retail are full of kids who don't know a lot and the ones focussed on the trade are full of tossers that have no time for general public.

As to wheather it is actually better... The greater surface area of standard homemade chilly bin mash tuns worries me for two reasons (neither of which I'm inclined to test or investigate)-
* greater potential for temperature loss
* the mash depth will be less, which could well lead to a hazy run off unless your recirculation is spot on.

I've tasted great beers made with all sorts of systems (and all sorts of ingredients).

[Mark]

that's me totally - i've got bugger all free time and am no great shakes at diying. glad to hear you recommend the morebeer system

[denimglen]

I re-read my last comment and it sounded a little daft.

I agree with you on eff vs quality. Consistency in mash eff is what I shoot for more than anything.

I don't have any problem with the morebeer system from what they're offering - if it's anything like the rest of their stuff it will be great, just would hate to see someone spend all that money when they could DIY something for 1/3 - 1/2 the price.

The heat loss on the rectangular coolers is huge...but easily fixed. I cut out a rectangle of styrofoam to sit on top of the mash, so no matter the depth of the grain bed there's no (or very little) air space over the mash. This drops temp loss to about 0.5C over about 90mins.

The mash depth is less, obviously, but with the braided hose after recircing 2L the runoff was crystal clear. The only problem with the braided hose is dead space and not being great for flysparging. With the hose I had about 2L of deadspace, hence me going to the manifold, which does run-off quite hazy without some very careful recirculation.

How much are you having to recirc with that false bottom? I'm building a sanke keg mashtun with a false bottom from MB.com - which I would assume is quite similar to yours. I was thinking that those holes were way too big to ever get anything clear from and it was kinda worrying me a bit.