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?

[Stu McKinlay]

Yeh, consistency is a must if you want to build consistent recipes.

I remember you mentioning your styrofoam ingenuity a while back - nice work there.

I recirculate about 1L and can get all but about 1L out of the mash tun. It works well - the false bottom is not what filters your mash, it is the grain bed that does that. The false bottom just stops the mast coming through. You may have to play around with your mill to get it perfect but my mill is not adjustable and have never had a problem.


ps. Mark - don't forget excise and GST. Add 20% to the final calculation, to be on the safe side. Sometimes things get through and sometimes they don't.

[denimglen]

I agree with you on the wort chiller, they're not hard to make but if you've never worked with the tools and pipe before it could be easy to stuff up and copper pipe ain't cheap. Brew pots are easy, check out the electric urns on trademe, 40L, comes with a tap and sight glass already installed. If you know someone that can use a hole-saw it's worth buying a replacement still element from a brew shop and running both for faster heating times.

But the cooler is really easy. You can buy all the bits from bunnings/mitre10 and the cooler from payless plastics. It can all be assembled with a couple of adjustable spanners. Give it a shot mate! Worth the effort :-)

[studio1]

I've been using BIAB and thinking about going down the cooler route (I already have a few coolers and the braided hose). I'm just wondering how long you guys would spend on an average brew, as time is quite important for me? I can knock out a brew in about 4.5hrs using BIAB (90 min mash). How long on averae does it take you to do a traditional AG?

[denimglen]

Depends on a few factors, like how many beers are consumed in the course of brewing and what's on TV :-P

I average about 6 hours but if I plan right could probably do it in 4.5 - 5.

I precrush my grains the night before.

15 minutes to heat up mash in water and pre heat the cooler.

Dump in the grains. Mash for about 30 - 90 mins.

Within last 15 minutes of mash, heat up mash out water. Dump in.

Sit for 10 mins.

Recirculate for about 5 mins.

First run off about 20 - 30 minutes.

Heat sparge water while this is running off.

Second runoff about 40 - 60 minutes.

And then into the boil.

So about 2 - 2.5 hours to get to the boil stage. Maybe a little longer for the sparges. I usually just enjoy a couple of beers, have dinner, watch some stuff on TV, read some brewing articles stuff like that during brewing. Once you've done a few it can be a sorta 'background process' if you plan right.

[studio1]

hey Glen, Do they sell the 10gal rubbermaids at Payless? Do you know the $$$?

[denimglen]

Yeah bro, like $250 I think, something ridulous, I'm waiting for them to come on special and when they do I'm gonna get one.

[James P]

$199, they had a payless discount on yesterday.... 20% off.... I was stuck at work otherwise would have gotten another to start my electric HLT project...

[denimglen]

Oh real, gay. I'll go down and see what they've got this weekend.

[Mike Neilson]

I got caught out on that one, everything had 20% off apart from the 5 10 gal coolers!! Cock smokers!!

[denimglen]

Lame. I'm sure I saw them on special one time for some reason though, maybe a mid winter or beginning of summer sale.

[studio1]

I've found and emailed the distributors asking for a price for 4-6 of them if anyone else was keen?

[denimglen]

Is that safco?

They quoted me 187+gst for one.

If it's a decent discount I'd be keen.