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How to build your own Mash Tun

January 28, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I know you’ve been looking at your prosaic smattering of material goods, wondering why you don’t have a custom made mash tun to brew all grain beer. It’s OK. I was too. It’s a normal and healthy question to ask yourself.

Until very recently, I had done all of my homebrew with malt extract: big cans of thick gloopy brown stuff that is packed with sugar for the young voracious yeast in your beer. This is great for learning the basics of brewing (it is simpler, takes less time, and is less messy), but it’s an established fact that real home brewers make their tinctures from 100% whole ingredients. Making the move to all grain is like a homebrewing right of passage; the malty vision quest that all young brewmasters must go on to realize their beer-soaked destinies.

All grain brewing basically means that you make your own mash from pounds and pounds of grain, instead of using extract. Aside from making you into a total beer brewing badass, using cracked malt leads to better tasting beer and gives you a lot more flexibility in flavor, color, and final ABV.

But how do you get the sugar out of all that delicious grain?

With a mash tun.

(Kudos/credits to the guys at Maryland Homebrew and Don Osborn for giving me the ideas and confidence to build this contraption)

Things you’ll need:

A large drink cooler (I used an family sized 52 quart Igloo cooler. The key is to find one with the drain spigot on the side, not the bottom.)
A large stainless steel toilet or sink supply hose (I used a 24″ tube, but you can use whatever best fits your cooler)
Two to three feet of 3/8″ plastic hosing (you don’t have to spring for the heat resistant kind if you want to save a few cents)
Two 3/8″ hose clamps (to clamp off the ends of the supply hose)
Various parts to make an on-off valve (I’ll explain this in detail below; you’ll probably have to order these online or get them from a local brewing store)
A hacksaw (to hack things)
Pliers (to ply things)
An adjustable wrench (to wrench things)
Beer! (Yuengling Porter for me, as I had it left over in a sampler my neighbors gave me for Xmas)

Tasty porter on a beer man’s chest.

Step 1: Prepare your supply line

A mash tun is just a large receptacle for grain and hot water. You want your grain to sit and steep inside of it so that all of the delicious sugars blend with the water and make tasty wort. The key here is that you don’t want the grains to come with sugar/water concoction, as they can cloud up (and add nasty chunks) to your beer.

The supply line hose you bought is going to be a filter inside the cooler that stops the cracked malt from entering your wort.

First, hack off both ends of the supply line with your hacksaw. This is easier if you have a vice. I don’t have a vice, so I held it with my super manly hands. Be careful that the frayed pieces of steel wire don’t poke and hurt your manly hands. When you get near the end, if a small section of the steel won’t saw, clip it off using some wire clipper to fully separate the ends from the main tube.

Braided stainless steel is surprisingly hard to hacksaw. Who’da thunk it?

Once the steel beast has been (double) beheaded, use your pliers to pull the plastic lining out of the steel part of the tube. This will leave you with a mesh hose with very fine holes all up and down it. A perfect grain filter if I’ve ever seen one.

The tube now functions like a Chinese finger trap. Please don't stick your fingers into it.

The tube now functions like a Chinese finger trap. That was me being figurative. Please don’t stick your fingers into it.

The last thing you need to do with the hose is fold it over itself two or three times and clamp it down as tight as it will go with one of your hose clamps. This will keep grains for sneaking into your filter through the end.

Please excuse my cuticles. I need a mani/pedi real bad.

Step 2: Install your on/off valve

This is really important. If you just connect a hose to the spigot of your cooler, chances are pretty high that you’ll have boiling hot wort all over your floor as soon as your start to sparge your grain. I tried a few different variations here, and a ball-lock valve with some nice copper fixtures makes for the most solid, leak-proof seal.

You’ll need parts similar to (or exactly like) the ones pictured below:

3/8″ hose adapter, threaded extension tube, washer, inner cooler o-ring, threaded middle piece, outer cooler o-ring, locking nut, ball valve, 3/8″ adapter (+2 hose clamps for the hose on each side)

You have to build this device in two sections: one on the inside of the cooler, one on the outside of the cooler. The “threaded middle piece” sits in cooler limbo, half in, half out, all ready to receive its respective end of the device.

When you’re ready to install the valve, carefully remove the original drain spigot by undoing the plastic bolts that hold it in place. Save this piece as you could always put it back in a re-convert this into a regular old cooler when you need it for a party.

Assemble your valve, make sure the o-rings are tight against the walls of the cooler, then fill it with a small amount of water and check for leaks. It helps to wrap the “threaded middle piece” in some Teflon tape if you’re getting small drips on the outside of the cooler.

Your finished product should look like this:

Tap on, tap off.

Step 3: Install your grain filter

This part should be pretty easy, just connect your pre-fabbed toilet-hose-filter to a piece of 3/8″ inch tubing that connects to your valve on the inside of the cooler. Secure it with hose clamp if you can’t get a very good fit.

Crude, yet sophisticated.

Step 4: Buy some grain and start brewing!

As long as this bad boy doesn’t leak, you’ll be all grain brewing in no time. When using this, make sure to keep it insulated (with towels or blankets or insulated wrapping) so that all that sugar-sucking heat doesn’t escape. Also elevate it so that you can use and abuse gravity to get all of that sparged wort into your brew pot as quickly as possible!

But more importantly, enjoy. All grain brewing brings a whole new level of dorkiness to your homebrewing activities, and puts you one step closer to owning/running your own brewery. Dream big my friends, dream big.

Looks a lot like oatmeal, huh?

Craft and Draft: Be a Tool

August 27, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

The kids are all abuzz with the saying, “don’t be a tool” with the obligatory “bro” or “brah” or “son” perfunctorily tacked onto the end.

I say screw the kids.

Be a tool.

A lot of writers (and hopeless creatives in general) assume that their brain is the one and only thing they need to succeed. In defense of that theory, it is the source of all your ideas, the seat of your talent, and the mother of all of your ingenious invention.

But the brain is only the Dewalt cordless drill of our creative toolbox. We have tools all over us. In fact, we are made out of tools.

It would be pretty difficult to write without your hands. Sure, there are things like Dragon out there, but at the end of the day, I don’t know one writer who doesn’t rely heavily on the ten or so fingers at the ends of his arms to bring his stories to life. But do you take care of them? Are you careful about where you stick them, what your pour onto them, or what they do while you’re asleep?

Until very recently, I was a nail biter. The moment the tips of my nails got longer than 2mm, I gnawed them to bloody nubs like some deranged mental patient in an independent Canadian horror film. My fingers constantly hurt, and I’d be forced to keep band aids on them, which in turn impacted my writing.

I finally realized how stupid I was being and kicked the habit. I went to Target and bought some $3 nail hardener which also tastes like a mixture of cranberry juice cocktail and roadkill, just in case my resolve lapsed. I applied it daily and let my nails grow, only trimming them with a set of nail clippers when they looked uneven. The added bonus: my finger nails are now bright and shiny like a Disney Princess’s tiara. I am bootiful.

Suddenly, magically, my fingers don’t hurt! I can write for hours and hours without worrying about that raw cuticle I ripped into the side of my thumb. All because I took the time to take care of my hands, my tools.

That little anecdote is just one, somewhat graphic, example. You wouldn’t leave your nice expensive Craftsman table saw that you “borrowed” from your neighbor 9 months ago out in the rain, would you? Then why would do something similar to your body?

Deep down, we all have this image of these amazing writers and artists who lived the dream and created mind-blowingly brilliant work after six lines of cocaine and a fifth of Jameson. Unfortunately, this is not reality. Most of the people who lived like this crashed, and crashed hard. Think Hemingway, Capote, Thompson, Kerouac, Poe, Fitzgerald, Joyce, etc. While a few drinks may loosen your mind-muscles, a lifetime of binge drinking will not result in success unless you were born with some supernatural talent and an immune system to match.

You’ll never get to the height of your creativity if you feel like crap. It’s that simple.

If you eat something that makes you feel like shit, your writing is going to be shit. If you have no energy because you’re out of shape or haven’t been sleeping well, your writing will have no energy. If you’re feeling dejected and pathetic because you don’t believe your art is any good, your writing will deflate, curl into the fetal position, and cry all over itself.

To be great you have to work hard, and to work hard you have to feel great. It can be difficult to eat right and exercise all the time, but you have to try. Little things make a big difference. When considering that Five Guys double cheeseburger, opt for a salad from Sweet Green instead. When you’re sitting waiting for that slow ass elevator, remember that the stairs would get you there faster, and you’d feel better. When you sit down to clack away at the keyboard, these little choices will seep from your body through your fingers into your writing, and it will be better, because you are better.

You have been given an amazing set of tools. Use them and take care of them. Don’t leave them out to rust.

Drilling a pilot hole is like the first draft, and drilling the…nevermind, this analogy is going nowhere.

How to Make your Wife Happy (and Organize your Tools like a Pro)

April 22, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

If you’re like me, you’re all “do” and “go” and very little “clean” and “organize.”

I have a lot of tools. Tiff has gotten to the point of rolling her eyes when my family gives me even more, obscure tools, to add to my ridiculous collection. While I’m not quite at the level of my Dad (who has any tool you’d ever need for anything plus a spare, just in case) I definitely have am impressive armory.

That armory, for all its repairman glory, is a big effing mess. I can never find anything I need, even though I know I have it…somewhere. I’ve even gotten to the point of buying replacement tools and supplies that I already own because I’ve given up trying to locate the original.

It’s bad.

“Oliver, it can’t be that bad”, you say. “You’re a reasonable person who hasn’t quite failed at life, so you’re probably just being hyperbolic, like usual.”

Oh yea? Behold, “The Pile”:

Seriously. You can't even see the stuff behind the other stuff. And this isn't even near all of my crap.

But now that the wedding is over and I have brief lull in the depraved sprint that is my life, I decided to make my new wife happy by cleaning the basement.

Supplies you’ll need:
-All of your tools (probably in a big pile)
-Your hands (preferably the ones at the ends of your arms)
-Beer (Yards IPA for me, hooray)

Cleaning up is sooooo much easier while drunk

Step 1: Eliminate the Garbage

First, get rid of all the trash. I’m sure by now you’ve collected hundreds of scraps of wood, drywall, and plastic, in addition to thousands of drywall anchors, random used screws, and other bits of unidentifiable metal. Good rule: if you haven’t needed a random piece left over from a new install it in two years, you can throw it away.

If the glue in the bottle has completely solidified, you can throw it away. If the tool or drill bit has rusted to the point of insta-tetanus, you can throw it away. If it is completely unidentifiable as anything you ever needed or will ever need, you can throw it away. Be judicious with your tossing.

This is not patina. This is me leaving a tool outside for weeks. You can throw this away.

Step 2: Consolidate

I find the easiest way to sort out a pile is to spread it out into smaller, catergorized piles. I made piles for screw drivers, wrenches, drill bits, painting supplies, saws, hex keys, random bits of uncategorizable stuff, knives, axes, stuff that should probably be upstairs with my computer parts, and pliers.

Once you’ve got your stuff in smaller piles, you can decide how you want to group them. I mentally took stock of what I use most often, and placed those in the uppermost drawers of my toolboxes.

Top drawer: screw drivers, knives, and adjustables. Middle drawer: wood clamps. Bottom drawer: hole drills, Grab-Its, socket extensions, pencils, other sundry drilling crap.

Step 3: Don’t fear the Bucket

I borrowed (stole) some great toolboxes from my Dad, but I can’t fit every tool I have into them and still be able to close the drawers. To that end, I started using a cheap, 5-gallon bucket to store my more unweidly tools.

A bucket works great for storing saws as you can place them blade down and not have to fear slicing your delicate writer hands on the vicious teeth. It’s also great for hammers, crowbars, axes, torque wrenches, grout floats, thinset spreaders, and anything else that just won’t fit into the confines of a small toolbox drawer.

The bucket can double as a brew bucket, if you use a lot of bleach.

Step 4: Organize the small stuff

Now that you’ve got the big stuff out of the way (or you should, and if you haven’t go back to step 3) you can focus on optimizing the organization of your tool boxes. The space in these is pretty limited, so it’s best to finagle the stuff for a while, trying to find the best fit.

Alternate screw drivers and paint brushes to get a pattern that takes the least space and looks the best. Do your best to line up similarly sized items to maximize the use of space.

Example of bad drawer organization:

The product of just throwing crap in a drawer for 2 years.

Example of good drawer organization:

Same drawer as the last picture, no shit.

Step 5: Put everything back in a manner that maximizes floor space

I shouldn’t have to explain this, so here’s a picture of “The Pile”, after about 2 hours of work.

The cats will undoubtedly be confused as to why you cleaned up their playland.

As soon as you’re done, call your wife to show off the results of your hard work. I recommend vacuuming before hand. She’ll probably be very happy with your work, and very appreciative that you’ve taken the initiative to clean up the mess that is your life.