Boll Weevil Brewery

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Mash Tun

I put together what I hope will work as my mash tun from an old donated 50 quart Igloo coolers and a few feet of CPVC pipe. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try this baby out in the next couple of weeks and see just how it works (if at all, heh heh).

As you can see in the above picture, I made the manifold from 1/2" CPVC and some fittings, 4 ells and 5 tees to be exact. I didn't glue the pieces together so that they may be disassembled cleaned a bit easier.

To put the manifold pipe through the end of the cooler, I simply removed the nut holding the cooler spout in place and drilled out the cooler nipple that went through to the outside. I used two part epoxy to seal the pipe so there would be no leaks. The opening in the cooler was higher than the level of the manifold, so I used a propane torch to GENTLY heat the CPVC and bend it slightly downward. When hot the pipe becomes flexible enough to bend and shape, and when it cools off it will harden and retain the bend. I also rotated the tee upwards a bit to line up with the pipe. Everything is flexible enough so that when I remove the manifold it just slips off of it without any problems.

I found a cheap CPVC ball valve and glued it onto the end of the pipe assembly. By leaving the inside manifold unglued, I can simply unscrew the nut and remove the valve if necessary (like to put in something that works a bit better just in case this one is a no go).

This is a view of the underside of the manifold pipes. I cut them using a hack saw. It looks like a lot of work, but I clamped all 4 pipes together side by side and cut them all at once, so actually the cuts were only 1/4 of the total number of slots that I made. I had no idea how deep to make the cuts, but figured I'd shoot for about 1/4 of the way up the diameter of the pipe...CPVC is an easily cut plastic...and I'm afraid that I over cut a lot of the slots.

Most of the cuts are closer to about 1/2 of the pipe diameter. This probably won't hurt anything during the sparge, but will probably leave a bit more wort in the mash tun then if the slots weren't so deep.

I have ordered the all grain ingredients to make a batch of American IPA, so I'll post how well this baby works after I give it a go. I thought I'd try the AIPA because it is a beer that I like, and the gravity is fairly high. If my efficiency is drastically low hopefully I'll be stuck with something in an American Pale Ale neighborhood...a very hoppy American Pale Ale!