So the lady got me a new 15 gallon kettle for winter solstice. And the old 10 gallon igloo round coolers just aren’t going to cut it for the mash tun any more.
So I purchased a 70 qrt coleman xTreme rectangle “blue” cooler. But now my question for the 10+ gallon all grain cooler mash brewers out there is braided stainless steel washing machine hookup versus manifold.
vs
Thoughts?
The washing machine hookup route is quick and easy - i use it myself and havent had any problems with it, but that manifold… oh man is that purty
The manifold is nice but that’s a lot of copper. I could see that being quite a bit more pricey. Not sure there is any added benefit to it other than looking cool.
If you’re batch sparging, I can’t think of a good reason to go with the copper manifold. Much more money and work.
If you want to go the manifold route but don’t want to pay out your @ss for copper, you can do the same thing with CPVC. And I would contend that the CPVC is better than copper b/c you can easily disassemble for cleaning.
The only part of that manifold that will be doing anything will be the first few inches near the drain.
I used an 8" toilet supply line in my 70qt Extreme and it works fine. I think the washer line could be trouble while you’re stirring.
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be that long. All the draining happens in the final few inches by the outlet.
Go braid. Go short. Don’t look back.
Go hybrid. Bring a pipe to the middle of the cooler and then use t connections to attach two braided loops. This way, you have multiple paths in case of a stuck sparge.
John Palmer has a great article on mash tun fluid dynamics that influenced my tun design.
keep it simple, a short braid works fine.
Is the plan to batch sparge or fly sparge? If batch sparging, there is no advantage to using a manifold, and as others have pointed out a short length of braid is sufficient and economical. If fly sparging, you are probably better off with a manifold AND you should design it so that the pipes run in towards a central point from which a single non-cut drain line exits. That type of symmetry will help ensure that all the flow is balanced.
I fly sparge.
So there is no need for a longer braided line? I would have thought that would be advised.
What length do you recommend Denny?
[quote=“CTDan”]Go hybrid. Bring a pipe to the middle of the cooler and then use t connections to attach two braided loops. This way, you have multiple paths in case of a stuck sparge.
John Palmer has a great article on mash tun fluid dynamics that influenced my tun design.[/quote]
If you’re a batch sparger, that has no relevance.
[quote=“muddywater_grant”]I fly sparge.
So there is no need for a longer braided line? I would have thought that would be advised.
What length do you recommend Denny?[/quote]
Well, if you fly sparge you should either use a manifold or make the same kind of configuration out of braid. If you batch sparge, a ft. of braid is fine and even 3" will work OK.
Hope I don’t end up hijacking the thread, but how’s the Nelson Centennial APA you have on tap? I have a bunch of Nelsons and I have not yet come up with a recipe that I wanted to try them in.
:cheers:
[quote=“rustyhoover”]Hope I don’t end up hijacking the thread, but how’s the Nelson Centennial APA you have on tap? I have a bunch of Nelsons and I have not yet come up with a recipe that I wanted to try them in.
:cheers: [/quote]
It went over very well. Didn’t last long. It took a couple weeks in the keg to hit it’s sweet spot… and then it disappeared.
Here is the recipe.
Nelson Sauvin Centennial Pale Ale
Recipe specifics:
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch size: 5.5 gal
Boil volume: 7.0 gal
OG: 1.047
FG: 1.012
Bitterness (IBU): 46.0
Color (SRM): 6.6
ABV: 4.6%
Grain/Sugars:
7.00 lb Weyermann Pale Ale Malt, 78.9%
1.50 lb Vienna (German), 16.9%
0.38 lb Crystal 60L, 4.2%
Hops:
0.50 oz Magnum (AA 12.0%, Pellet) 60 min, 21.2 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial (AA 9.0%, Pellet) 20 min, 9.6 IBU
0.50 oz Nelson Sauvin (AA 12.0%, Pellet) 10 min, 7.7 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial (AA 9.0%, Pellet) 5 min, 3.2 IBU
0.50 oz Nelson Sauvin (AA 12.0%, Pellet) 5 min, 4.2 IBU
1.00 oz Nelson Sauvin (AA 12.0%, Pellet) 0 min, 0.0 IBU
2.00 oz Centennial (AA 9.0%, Pellet) dry hop
2.00 oz Nelson Sauvin (AA 12.0%, Pellet) dry hop
Yeast/Misc:
White Labs WLP090 San Diego Super Strain, 1.0 unit(s)
Mine actually went down to 1.008 and gave me a abv of 5.1%
[quote=“Denny”][quote=“muddywater_grant”]I fly sparge.
So there is no need for a longer braided line? I would have thought that would be advised.
What length do you recommend Denny?[/quote]
Well, if you fly sparge you should either use a manifold or make the same kind of configuration out of braid. If you batch sparge, a ft. of braid is fine and even 3" will work OK.[/quote]
Some something similar to this?
or
or would this just be enough
FWIW…I went with a copper manifold…mainlt because that is what I already had lying around the basement.
Works just fine. Mine is not as elaborate as the pic you posted but very similar.
It is actually very easy to clean up. The connections are only slightly “crimped” so it pulls apart and fits in my dishwasher If I dont just rinse it out immediately.
The first example is what you should use if you want to fly sparge. Although why you’d want to do that is beyond me… 
